A C.B.I /AXA survey revealed that the suspected short term sickies lose approximately 21 Billion days in 2006. With workers costing a total of %.1 Billion. This was divided into the public sector with just over half of absence (52%) is long term and the private sector was over a third of the total (38%).
Short term absence are becoming a top concern. Most of absences are genuine, but employers believe around 12% of these involve staff pulling a sickie. This means that 21 Billion (Yes 21 BILLION) days were lost in 2006. If these are correct this means that it has come at a great loss to our economy costing it to loose £1.6 Billion.
Most of these come from people who think they have the right to take a sickie as a long weekend or extended holiday. Fraudulent absence put other colleagues under unfair pressure, and it looses employers and the TAX Payer over £1 Billion. If the public sector could match average private sector absence levels then this would save the Taxpayer £1.1Billion per year.
The survey showed that levels across the UK varied widely, these results showed the following areas percentage of staff sickies. The North west was the worst and lost a total of 8.8 days (Per Employee), Southern England was 8.4, the West Midlands 8.4, Wales 8.1, Northern England 7.7, the East midlands 7.6, Yorkshire & Humberside 7.3, South West England 7.1, Eastern England 6.9 and Northern Ireland 6.6. The countries lowest levels were South East England 6.2, Scotland 6.0, and Greater London was 5.8.
One of the top main sicknesses was the Flu, Colds and other minor illnesses were identified by 99% of respondents as one of the top 5 top causes of short term sickies. Back pain was the second most highly sicknesses.
Were as non-work related sicknesses like mental health-including anxiety, stress and depression was ranked as the highest cause of long term absence among non-manual staff, identified by 72% correspondents to the survey .
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