zlacker

You don't run out of sick days, if you're sick you're sick.

You just run out of paid sick days. The employer will just drop you.

>>apexal+(OP)
Do you mean "drop you" as in stop paying for you while you're off sick? Or is it "drop you" as in simply show you (an emailed picture of) the door and terminate your employment?

Both sound bad to me, but I can to a certain extent understand the logic behind the first option in terms of the financial interests of the company. I can definitely see a "Sorry Ashley, you're out of paid sick days so we won't be paying your salary this month, we can't afford paying for nothing. I hope you recover and can come back to work with us soon!". The way we make up for this in Spain (and I'm assuming in varying similar ways in other countries) is by having the Social Security start taking charge of growing percentages of the employee's salary during sick leave as it prolongs in time, so as to reduce the impact on the business.

The second "drop you" sounds much worse though. You have an illness or an accident bad enough that it exhausts your paid sick days, so your employer simply sacks you out of impatience? And what happens to the employment-dependent health insurance which (I assume) was what was covering you on your long sick leave? "Sorry Ashley, you're out of paid sick days so we're firing you. I hope you recover enough from your severe TBE before your savings run out so you can find a new job. Also I hope you weren't depending too much on our health insurance plan for rehab. Good luck!".

>>Mordis+ik
Yes, if you have an illness that takes you well beyond available paid sick days (usually around 5 to 10 days a year depending on employer), it is common that you will be fired and lose your job entirely. Some workplaces are more compassionate than others but not many

When this happens you lose your insurance too, usually at the end of the month. You can pay around $800-1200 a month to keep it though, more if there’s a spouse or kids

>>Mordis+ik
They will first stop paying your sick days and depending on what job you are in they may allow some additional time before they eventually fire you. If you are in a lower paying job it's likely you will be terminated earlier than someone in a higher paying white collar job.