The corona numbers are increasing – also in the southwest. Businesses feel this too. Will the pandemic soon paralyze companies again?
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – According to a survey by the German Press Agency among larger industrial companies, companies in Baden-Württemberg are already feeling the increasing corona numbers in sick leave. So far, this does not seem to be excessively high, but it is already causing problems in isolated cases.
At the Fischer group of companies from Waldachtal (Freudenstadt district), which is known for its dowels, among other things, the sick leave rate in the first half of 2022 was 4.9 percent, almost two percentage points higher than in the same period of the previous year. “In our opinion, Corona accounts for a large part of the illnesses and absences,” explained CEO Marc-Sven Mengis. In the administrative areas, employees often worked mobile during mild cases. In production, however, this is not possible. “We have capacity problems in some areas,” said Mengis. Holiday jobbers and temporary workers should bridge this gap.
The auto supplier PWO from Oberkirch (Ortenaukreis) is currently reporting a similar level of sick leave as in July 2021. Compared to 2020 and 2019, however, this is almost a third more, said a spokeswoman. “A significant part of our sickness rate is due to Covid.” Production is controlled particularly carefully on individual so-called bottleneck machines. After the holiday period, the company expects an increase in sick leave. Based on the sickness rate, a graduated plan of measures should then take effect.
The industrial service provider Bilfinger and the pharmaceutical wholesaler Phoenix from Mannheim as well as the technology group and automotive supplier Bosch from Gerlingen (Ludwigsburg district) only report slightly higher sick leave, according to press offices. According to a spokeswoman, the development of the number of cases at Mercedes-Benz currently corresponds approximately to the national or regional development.
A spokesman for HeidelbergCement announced that a visible number of Covid diseases can currently be observed. “However, we are not experiencing any excessively high numbers of absenteeism. Especially among office workers, the situation is easy to get a grip on with remote work.” Remote work means employment away from the office, for example at home.
It sounds similar at the tunnel boring machine manufacturer Herrenknecht from Schwanau (Ortenaukreis). To date, the failures due to Corona have not been dramatic and have no consequences for the worldwide projects, a spokeswoman said. Should the course of the pandemic make it necessary, measures such as mandatory masks, stricter distance rules and vaccination services would be reintroduced.
At the Würth retail group from Künzelsau (Hohenlohe district), there is a slightly higher level of sick leave, said company boss Robert Friedmann. He’s not worried about that at the moment, just to the extent that he’s asking himself: “Man, how will it be when it gets cooler again?” If the sick leave increases noticeably, Würth will “of course return to the mask requirement”.