Sickies cost £1.7bn last year

WORKERS pulling 'sickies' cost the UK economy £1.7bn last year through lost productivity and the cost of temporary cover.

Fridays and Mondays were the most popular days to call in sick as workers look to extend their weekend, while businesses also noticed increased absence around Bank Holidays.

A report by the CBI found workplace absence cost a total of £12.2bn in 2004, from £11.6bn the year before, equating to £495 per worker.

The survey of more than 500 firms, in association with insurance firm AXA, showed that 6.8 working days were lost per employee last year. The total number of days lost to absence fell from 176m to 168m. Around 23m of these were as a result of 'unwarranted absence'.

John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI, said: 'Employers understand that staff are not invincible. They accept that the majority of absence is due to genuine minor illness and nobody is saying that genuinely ill staff should drag themselves to work.

'But there are some employees who will gladly award themselves a day off when they are in good health at the expense of their employers and hard-working colleagues.'

Minor illnesses, such as flu, were a main cause of absence last year, although other problems included stress and back pain.

Manufacturing firms reported higher absence levels than service sector companies, losing an average of seven days per worker. Manual workers took an average of 8.4 days off compared with six for non-manual staff.

The South West lost the most working days to absence, followed by the North West, the West Midlands and northern England, Yorkshire and the Humber (7.4) and the South East (7.3).

Bigger companies reported higher absence levels than smaller firms and the survey showed that most organisations were now taking action to try to reduce absence such as introducing return-to-work interviews.