Absenteeism in the US

• According to Absenteeism: The Bottom-Line Killer, a publication of the workforce solution company Circadian, unscheduled absenteeism costs roughly $3,600 per year for each hourly worker and $2,660 each year for salaried employees. The costs can be attributed to many factors including:
• Wages paid to absent employees .
• High-cost replacement workers (overtime pay for other employees and/or temporary workers) .
•  Administrative costs of managing absenteeism.
• According to the CDC, the annual cost in 2017 was $1,685. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lso report that “productivity losses linked to absenteeism cost employers 225.8 billion USD annually.
•   Employer Assistance and Resource Network (EARN) states that “each year workers in the U.S. miss more than half a billion work days,” which according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics results in financial losses of 40 billion USD per year.
• The most common causes of short-term absences are:
• Minor illness (81%).
• Stress (8%).
• Musculoskeletal injuries (6%).
• Mental health (2%).
• The most common causes of long-term absences are:
• Acute medical conditions (23%).
• Mental health (22%).
• Stress (22%).
• Musculoskeletal injuries (19%).

Presenteeism

• The costs of presenteeism are much higher than the costs posed by absenteeism. According to Karen Higginbottom, a freelance journalist who covers workplace topics, the cost of presenteeism can be ten times greater than the cost of absenteeism. This can amount ot $150 billion per year in the US.
• A study by health insurer Vitality has found that more than 40% of employees said their work was being affected by health problems - a figure that's risen by a third over the last five years.
• Employees working while sick (presenteeism) costs employers about $150 billion to $250 billion or 60% of the total cost of worker illness, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Fibromyalgia & Pain

• Indirect costs account for the majority of FM-related costs at all severity levels. More than three-quarters of total FM-related costs were attributable to lost productivity and disability.
• American employers lose billions of dollars a year on employee absenteeism as a result of pain: lost productive time from common pain conditions among active workers costs an estimated $61.2 billion per year. The majority (76.6%) of the lost productive time was explained by reduced performance while at work and not work absence.

Predictions

• One study predicts that the cost of absenteeism and presenteeism in the US will by 5.5 % of the GDP by 2025.
• Time prevented further research in this area.