According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, daycare workers in Hamburg were sick for an average of 33.2 days in 2023. The Hamburg-wide average for all professional groups is 18.9 days. The sick leave rate in daycare centers was thus 75% higher. This puts Hamburg, along with Bremen, at the top of the western German federal states.
Kristin Alheit, Executive Director of the PARITÄTISCHE Welfare Association Hamburg, which has around 300 daycare centers among its members, said:
“These are very alarming figures that show how much pressure the professionals in daycare centers are under and how urgently action must be taken. However, given the feedback we are increasingly receiving from our members, this does not surprise me.
On average, 9.1 percent of employees were absent each working day due to illness, meaning that healthy colleagues had to work almost 10 percent more every day. This cannot be sustained in the long term. This vicious circle must be broken.
Working conditions in daycare centers must be improved in order to reduce sick leave and alleviate staff shortages. This requires more social recognition of daycare centers as places of education, complete funding of the actual work, including preparation and follow-up times, as well as real funding of wage increases and downtime.
In Hamburg, teaching staff are absent for an average of 55 days due to vacation, training and illness, which is 21.9% of working days. In no other western German state are the numbers as high. The current regulations for refinancing daycare centers have become obsolete and urgently need to be adapted to reality.”
