Staff calling in sick costs firms €500m a year

WORKERS calling in sick are costing small businesses more than €500m each year, according to ISME.

Workers take an average of five days’ unofficial leave each. This means more than five million man days are lost

annually. The figures are included in ISME’s latest report, Wages and Conditions of Employment in Small Businesses. For the first time, employers were asked to list unofficial absences by workers.“Small businesses are seeing a lot of workers missing on a Monday morning. There’s certainly an element of malingering,” ISME head of research Jim Curran said. Small businesses employ 60% of the workforce, and absenteeism affects them much more than large companies. “If you have ten employees and two of them don’t turn up, that’s 20% of your productivity gone. When that’s added to the normal sick days, it causes huge problems for small companies,” said Mr Curran.