Although sick days cost UK employers £89 million per year, the average number being taken has been on the decline for the last five years.
According to a survey of 343 organisations by XpertHR, every member of staff took around 6.4 days due to illness in 2011, in a move that cost their employer £618 each or an average of £750,000 per organisation. The figure was 8.3 days in 2007, a drop of about two days.
The median percentage of working time lost to absence five years ago was likewise 3.2% across all sectors compared to 2.5% last year. Sickness absence rates were higher in the public sector, however, coming in at a median of 3.1% compared with 2.3% in the private sector.
Rachel Suff, the report’s author said: “Figures show a slow but sure year-on-year decline in overall absence levels across all employers over the past five years, including the public sector. The difference is that the public sector’s drop has come from a higher starting point.”
There were similar disparities across the different UK regions too. London and the South East of England experienced the lowest absence rates at a median of 5.3 and 5.4 days respectively in 2011, while Wales showed the highest levels at 6.5 days.
As an interesting aside, however, about five pre-recession years ago, the Centre for Mental Health calculated that presenteeism cost the UK economy a huge £15.1 billion per year, dwarfing the cost of sickness absence significantly.
