Germany news: Over 60s take month of sick leave per year

Rain has not appeared to put off carneval-revellers in Cologne with festivities set to kick off at 11:11 a.m. (1011 GMT) on November 11.

Groups of people in colorful costumes had already started gathering outside the Cologne main station, at the foot of the famous Cologne Cathedral, despite the wet weather.

Bakeries have been selling their traditional carneval pastries like hot cakes.

Local authorities expect tens of thousands of people to join the celebrations. Some 1,000 police officers as well as 1,200 agents from a private security firm have been deployed.

Germany has slipped down the climate action ranking for the third consecutive year, with the former green leader now being outperformed by Brazil, Columbia and Romania.

In its worst performance since 2019, the country fell to place 25 and received a “medium” rating overall on the yearly Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which assesses efforts to curb global warming in 64 countries plus the European Union.

Read DW’s full report on Germany’s environmental woes here.

Year-on-year inflation for October dropped down slightly to 2.8% after reaching 3.3% in September, according to preliminary figures from the Federal Office of Statistics (Destatis).

Record high prices for gas and diesel pushed up inflation in September but this was brought down thanks to government subsidy for consumers at the gas pump that was introduced in October.

“The main factor behind the persistently high inflation rate remained the trend in energy prices, even though the fuel subsidy, which was reintroduced in early October, may have tempered inflation somewhat,” Destatis President Ruth Brand said.

German workers aged between 60 and 65 took an average of 31.3 days of sick leave per year, based on data from 2024 released by the Health Ministry in response to a question posed by the Left party in the Bundestag.

The average number of sick days taken by all workers was 15, according to the Federal Office of Statistics (Destatis).

The number of 60 to 65-year-olds who have taken a year or more off for sick leave has also increased in recent years. It went from around 80,300 people in 2022 to 96,100 in 2024.

Left party spokesperson Sarah Vollath called the figures a “clear warning sign” in comments to the Rhenish Post and warned that workers cannot “keep working forever.”

“If the federal government has its way, the retirement age for workers will soon be pushed even further into the future due to another increase in the standard retirement age. This completely ignores the reality of life for older workers.”

The government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has set retirement reform as one of its main goals, with policies including pushing the retirement age back to 67 years.

Good morning and For the outdoors!

November 11, as well as being Armistice Day, is also the first day of the carneval season with events taking place throughout the Rhineland region, including in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz.

We are also expecting the German Council of Economic Experts to publish their annual report providing forecasts and proposals to the German government.

Keep reading for this and more.