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A million Germans home sick from work on Friday the 13th

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A million Germans home sick from work on Friday the 13th
Lucky for some? Photo: DPA

Today’s supposedly unlucky date of Friday the 13th should be taken seriously by employers, with up to five times as many German people staying off work sick as on other Fridays.

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Figures from the Kaufmännische Krankenkasse, the country's fourth biggest health insurer, culled from statistics of sick day rates between 2006 and 2008 show a dramatic increase of missing workers on Fridays that are the 13th of the month.

Around a million people take the day off work sick on Friday the 13th, with the record absenteeism being held by Friday January 13, 2006, when around 1.3 million people stayed at home, the insurer said in a statement.

The last Friday the 13th was only a month ago, an anomaly which occurs when the 13th of February is a Friday and the month has 28 days – leading March 13 to be a Friday the 13th too.

This constellation is next due in 2015. But the next Friday the 13th will be in November.

Fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, which often causes those who have it to change flights or other supposedly risky activities so they take place on a different day.

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