Long weekends and random days off costs UK £100bn a year

Anticipating the upcoming bank holiday, employees may be considering taking an extra day off to elongate the three day weekend.

30% of UK firms report ‘illegitimate absence’ as one of the top reasons for short term employee absence in manual workers, and 23% in non-manual workers.

However, an employee pulling a ‘sickie’ leaves employers in the lurch, amounting to an estimated £100 billion a year impact on the British economy.

In 2015, UK businesses lost 6.9 days per employee, costing employers an average of £554 per employee per year according to research by the CIPD.