How Many Employees Does One 24/7 Post Need in Denmark?
Holding one position every hour of 2026 in Denmark takes 8,766 staffed hours. One full-time employee is genuinely available for about 1,601 of them, so the post needs 5.48 employees, which is 6 whole people.
One ring per person, one year each
Each ring is one employee's year, broken wherever they are on holiday, on leave, or off sick. No single ring closes, which is the whole problem: one person cannot hold a post that never stops.
Stack 6 of them and the picture closes. Trace any line out from the center and it crosses at least one solid arc, so every hour of 2026 has somebody on it. That is the relief factor, drawn rather than asserted.
Where the number comes from
- 1
Staffing one position 168 hours a week comes to 8,766 hours across the year.
- 2
Denmark has 261 weekdays in the year, the starting point for one employee.
- 3
Take out 7 public holidays that fall on a weekday, 25 days of statutory paid leave, 9.67 days of average sickness absence, and 3 days of training: 44.67 days lost.
- 4
That leaves 216.33 working days per employee, and at a 37-hour week that is 7.4 hours a day, so 1,601 available hours a year.
- 5
8,766 coverage hours divided by 1,601 available hours is a relief factor of 5.48, so the post needs 6 people.
| Weekdays in the year | 261 |
| Public holidays on a weekday | −7 |
| Statutory paid annual leave | −25 |
| Average sickness absence | −9.67 |
| Training and onboarding (assumed) | −3 |
| Working days available | 216.33 |
| At 7.4 hours a day | 1,601 hours |
Paid public holidays are a statutory entitlement in Denmark, so they sit on top of annual leave and are deducted separately here.
The training allowance of 3 days is a planning assumption rather than a sourced statistic, and it is deliberately low. Every other figure on this page carries a source. If your operation runs heavy certification cycles, raise it and the relief factor rises with it.
What the usual rule of thumb gets wrong here
The common shortcut is to divide coverage hours by contracted hours and add a quarter for absence. In Denmark that gives 5.67 against a derived answer of 5.48, so the shortcut is high by 3.6 percent. A flat buffer travels badly because the things it stands in for, statutory leave and the length of the contracted week, are set nationally.
Nobody ever away. Not a real answer.
The usual shortcut, over by 3.6%.
From Denmark's own leave, hours, and absence.
Other coverage shapes
The same availability figure answers any coverage window. Only the hours the post must be staffed change.
| Coverage | Hours a week | Relief factor | People |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round the clock, every day | 168 | 5.48 | 6 |
| Round the clock, weekdays only | 120 | 3.91 | 4 |
| Two shifts, every day | 112 | 3.65 | 4 |
| Extended day, weekdays only | 60 | 1.96 | 2 |
If your contract is more generous
25 days is the statutory floor in Denmark, and most employers sit above it. Every extra week of leave is another week the post has to be covered by somebody else.
| Annual leave | Relief factor | People per post |
|---|---|---|
| 25 daysstatutory floor | 5.48 | 6 |
| 28 days | 5.55 | 6 |
| 30 days | 5.61 | 6 |
| 33 days | 5.69 | 6 |
The inputs, and what they do not say
How the leave figure is defined
Law states 5 weeks (ferieloven § 4), accrued at 2.08 days per month (§ 5), which equals 25 days over a full holiday year; § 6 stk. 2 places holiday at 5 days per week and § 6 stk. 3 bars placing it on the weekly rest day or on public holidays (søgnehelligdage), so the 25 are working days on a 5-day week and public holidays sit outside the entitlement.
Why the contracted week is not the legal maximum
This page divides by a 37-hour week, the typical full-time contract in Denmark, not by the 48-hour statutory figure. That larger number is a legal ceiling on how much someone may be asked to work, not a description of what a full-time employee is contracted for, and using it as capacity would understate the headcount a post needs.
What these figures cannot be used for
Not a ranking. The sickness figure here comes from a national statistical source, while other countries in this library use the OECD labour force survey. Those systems define absence differently, and self-reported survey figures undercount short spells that administrative records capture. Each number is the best available answer for planning inside its own country, and the gap between any two of them is partly a gap between statistical methods rather than between workforces.
A relief factor also says nothing about whether a roster is legal or humane. It sets how many people the post needs across a year; it does not check rest periods between shifts, consecutive nights, or weekend distribution. Those constraints decide whether the pattern you build on top of this headcount is one anybody can actually work.
Research notes on Denmark
Denmark has no statutory standard working week. The only number in law is the cap in the Working Time Act (LBK nr 982 af 12/08/2024) § 4: average working time per seven-day period, measured over four months, must not exceed 48 hours including overtime. Treating 48 as a normal full-time week would badly overstate Danish scheduling. The planning number is the collectively agreed 37 hours, which the Danish Business Authority and the government citizen portal both describe as the norm for the vast majority of areas. Since 2024 (lov nr 89 af 30/01/2024) employers must record working time, and § 4 a allows a narrow collectively agreed opt-out above 48 hours for on-call and socially critical functions.
Whether the 37 hours include a paid meal break varies by agreement, which matters if the calculator converts contracted hours into productive hours. In the state sector the paid lunch break counts inside the 37 hours (PAV chapter 19), so attendance is 37 hours and roughly 2.5 of those are break. In parts of the private sector lunch is unpaid and sits outside the 37. Verify per agreement before treating 37 as 37 productive hours.
Leave: the single most common error is stating a Danish figure that folds in public holidays. It does not. The 25 days are pure working days and ferieloven § 6 stk. 3 explicitly forbids placing holiday on søgnehelligdage, so a public holiday inside a holiday week does not consume a holiday day. Denmark separately has about nine public holidays on weekdays; Store Bededag was abolished as a public holiday with effect from 2024 (LOV nr 214 af 06/03/2023), and there are pending parliamentary motions to reintroduce it, so any hard-coded public holiday count for Denmark should be revisited. Also note that many collective agreements add a sixth week (five feriefridage), so contracted leave in practice is often 30 days rather than the statutory 25. The Holiday Act runs a concurrent holiday year from 1 September to 31 August with a 16-month taking period, so accrual is not aligned to the calendar year.
Sickness: 9.67 is Statistics Denmark's all-sector average absence days per full-time employee for own sickness in 2024 (absence rate 4.12 percent), the most recent year published (updated 6 November 2025, next update December 2026). The all-sector average is pulled up heavily by the public sector. Same table, same year: corporations and organisations 7.81 days (3.25 percent), general government 13.29 days (5.93 percent). If the calculator serves private-sector shift teams, 7.81 is the more honest input and 9.67 will overstate absence. The figure counts own sickness only and excludes child sickness, maternity and occupational injury, which are separate causes in the same table. It is measured in full-day equivalents of scheduled working days, so it is already in working days and needs no conversion. Coverage is employees only; the private-sector component comes from a sample of about 2,600 enterprises, and people in flexjob or light jobs are excluded.
Sources
Every figure above except the training allowance was checked against one of these.
Statutory maximum weekly working time: 48 hours average per seven-day period over four months, including overtime (§ 4). No statutory standard normal week.
Statutory paid annual leave: 5 weeks accrued at 2.08 days per month (§§ 4 and 5) = 25 working days; holiday taken at 5 days per week and cannot be placed on the weekly rest day or on public holidays (§ 6 stk. 2 and 3)
Normal agreed working week 37 hours; maximum 48 hours on average including overtime; hours are set by collective agreement rather than by law
Erhvervsstyrelsen (Danish Business Authority), Business in Denmark2026
Standard working hours are 37 hours per week in most areas; maximum 48 hours on average including overtime (page last updated 29 June 2026)
State sector full-time week is on average 37 hours over a one-month norm period, with the paid meal break counted inside the 37 hours
Medarbejder- og Kompetencestyrelsen, Personaleadministrativ Vejledning kapitel 192026
Absence due to own sickness 2024: 9.67 absence days per full-time employee, all sectors (absence rate 4.12 percent); corporations and organisations 7.81 days; general government 13.29 days
Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark), StatBank table FRA0202024
Corroboration of the 2024 sickness absence headline (9.67 days per full-time employee, 4.12 percent) and description of population coverage
Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark), Absence from work subject page2024
Store Bededag abolished as a public holiday with effect from 2024, reducing the Danish weekday public holiday count
Beskæftigelsesministeriet, via Retsinformation (LOV nr 214 af 06/03/2023)2023
Common questions
- How many people does one 24/7 position need in Denmark?
- 6 people. One position staffed every hour of the year is 8,766 hours, and one full-time employee in Denmark is actually available for about 1,601 of them once 44.67 days of holidays, leave, sickness and training come out. That is a relief factor of 5.48, which rounds up to 6 whole people.
- What is a relief factor?
- The number of employees needed to keep one position filled continuously, once the days nobody works are taken out. It is coverage hours divided by the hours one employee is genuinely available. In Denmark that is 8,766 divided by 1,601, or 5.48. A factor below the headcount you actually employ means the post runs on overtime.
- Why is a flat 25 percent absence buffer not enough for Denmark?
- Because it overshoots here. A raw hours calculation gives 4.54 employees, and adding a flat quarter takes that to 5.67, against a derived answer of 5.48. That is 3.6 percent too high, because the rule of thumb assumes more leave and sickness than Denmark actually loses.
- Does the statutory leave minimum reflect what employers actually give in Denmark?
- It is a floor, not a norm. This page computes on the statutory minimum of 25 working days because that is the figure the law fixes and a source can be attached to. Most employers sit above it, and the sensitivity table on this page shows what the relief factor becomes at more generous entitlements, so a planner can find their own contract rather than taking the floor as the answer.
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