When employers cover GLP-1s, workers may take less sick leave

Employers are under pressure to cover GLP-1s for weight loss, but the research on how these trending medications impact the workforce is still evolving.

A recent paper published in the National Bureau of Economic Research provides one new datapoint for benefits leaders seeking additional information on GLP-1s, specifically with regard to sick leave.

The paper, which hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, analyzed Danish administrative data for two separate groups of patients taking GLP-1s; it compared those who started the medications between August 2018 and December 2019 with those who started four years later, from August 2022 to December 2023.

Over this time period, the amount of long-term sick leave that patients took declined by 17.3%, researchers found. Reduced sick leaves among these GLP-1 patients translated to a 1.3%–1.5% reduction in savings for employers and the government, which pay out sick leave benefits in Denmark.

The reduction in sick leave was something the researchers expected to see, given that GLP-1s help patients avoid major adverse cardiovascular events, said Jonathan Zhang, an assistant professor at Duke University’ Sanford School of Public Policy who co-authored the paper. Reduced sick leave is a byproduct of improved health, and fewer of these cardiovascular events, among the workforce, he said.

“If you have a stroke, for example, that’s gonna probably take you down, and you’ll be kind of out of work for a few weeks, right? That’s a major hospitalization,” he explained.

While the government and employers saw benefits from the sick leave reductions tied to GLP-1 usage, workers did not see meaningful improvement in their level of employment or total income over this period, the research found. This is in part because the Danish government pays workers for the duration of their sick leave. As a result, even when workers took less sick leave, they didn’t see their wages go up.

“Our study doesn’t provide any evidence to say that workers would necessarily be sort of more productive in a way that would lead to promotions and higher income,” Zhang said. “That doesn’t mean that that won’t happen. That’s just not what we see in Denmark.”

Breaking down the benefits. While these findings may prove helpful for HR leaders hoping to understand how GLP-1s may affect workforce absences, it’s worth noting that they occurred in a country with generous sick leave coverage. Whether a US-based employer sees similar results will depend on whether they even offer sick leave in the first place. The federal government doesn’t mandate that businesses offer paid sick leave, though many states now do. If an employer doesn’t offer sick leave to begin with, then this type of effect wouldn’t be discernable, Zhang said.

Calculations like the one in this paper may prove even more important as employers grapple with the effect of GLP-1s on their healthcare budgets. As of 2025, health plans that covered GLP-1s for obesity treatment saw the price of prescription drugs rising at a rate of 18.3%, compared to 10.5% for those who did not, according to consulting firm Segal.