If you want to reduce the hours you work because you can’t manage a full time job, you should ask your employer.

If you have been sick and off work for more than 6 weeks in a six-month period, your employer has a duty to offer BEM (workplace integration management) to support you. You can arrange to have your working hours reduced as part of BEM.

After being absent because of illness, it is also possible to ease back gradually into working life by arranging to spend a limited period working part-time. One particular option (known as the “Hamburg model”) offers a stepwise return to work. The aim of returning stepwise is to allow the employee to become accustomed to taking on a full workload once again with the aid of medical supervision.

Further information about BEM and the Hamburg model is available at einfach-teilhaben.de, a website of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

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