Sick days are costing UK employers about £29 billion a year as British workers take up to four times as many days off than rival economies, according to research from accountancy firm PwC.

It is estimated that 56% of these are false claims.

That is why I think this country is going down the s**t hole.

The ONS reports around 131m days lost to sickness in the UK, for 2013, which was down again having effectively dropped by 40m from a decade; Sickness is actually higher in the Public sector, than the private sector.

This works out as 4.4 sick days per employee in the UK as an average. 27.4 m of the lost days were for minor complaints, such as coughs and colds with six per cent being undeclared. Presumably this would be majority of the 56% cases 'PwC' refer to. Note - even if all of these claims were false, that would be around 20% of sick claims.

Most companies I've managed staff at don't consider under 7 days a year to be worth following up. So an average of 4.4 isn't actually costing employers anything, its actually saving them 3 days per employee on average, against their own policy.

Also the figure of sick leave has dropped 40m over the last decade.

Also the biggest growth area, is stress related, which might also go hand in hand with the hours worked in the UK being higher, job security being lower and the number of unpaid hours high.

I'm also going to suggest that their comparisons are to second and third world economies, rather than similar nations such as France, Germany etc.

I think the reality is often clouded by the tendency to distort information towards an required outcome. I don't necessarily disagree that the country might be going down the s**thole, but I definitely don't think its because workers are 'bucking the system'.

Edited by jamiemartin721 (21 Mar 2016 5.29pm)

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

quiet now Gideon, those evil poor people aren't the problem