A review of sickness-related leave in twenty-two high human development index countries

Employers are not required to pay for the employee’s earnings during the absence.15 If employers do not pay for sick days or if the employees have used up all their paid sick days provided by employers, the employees can apply for sickness benefit under the National Employment Insurance (EI).16 Given that the employee has worked for 600 hours in the last 52 weeks prior to sickness or since the las [...] The daily benefit is paid from the fourth day of absence (that is, after a three-day waiting period), for up to 12 months over a three-year period; if the illness is long-term, the benefit is paid for a maximum of three years for the same illness. [...] If there are three or more dependent children in the same household, the worker is paid “two-thirds of the daily wage as from the 31st day of sick leave [. ], up to a limit of 1/540th of the annual Social Security ceiling [€63.53]” (rates as of January 1, 2009) (CLEISS, n.d.). [...] The duration of employer-pay depends on the job tenure – “if the insured has worked for the same employer for at least a year, the employer must pay the difference between the cash benefit and the employee’s earnings for a month; if the employment period is less than a year, the employer pays the difference for two weeks” (US SSA, 2008). [...] The National Social Security Institute (INPS) guarantees a sickness benefit of 50 percent of earnings for the first 20 days of illness and two-thirds of earnings from the 21st day of illness.