Background <p>Older employees in the healthcare sector faced special challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The aim of this article is to describe the working conditions of these employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare their well-being, work stress, health and work ability before and directly after the pandemic.</p> Methods <p>Using data from the lidA study, cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses are conducted. A comparison was made between six occupational groups from the healthcare, education and social sectors: healthcare and nursing, geriatric care, medical assistance as well as child education, social work and school teaching. The analyses include comparisons of frequencies, group means and generalized linear models (GLM) repeated measures ANOVA.</p> Results <p>The results confirm that the COVID-19 pandemic had a&#xa0;particularly stressful impact on older employees in the examined occupational groups. Employees reported frequent worries about becoming infected as well as frequent infections at work. Some employees in the healthcare sector even had to continue working despite having a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus&#xa0;2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. For all six occupational groups, a&#xa0;lower level of well-being, increased stress and a&#xa0;significant deterioration in mental health and work ability were observed immediately after the pandemic compared to the years before.</p> Discussion <p>There was already a&#xa0;shortage of staff in social occupations before the COVID-19 pandemic. This shortage has probably been exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic on work stress, health and work ability.</p>