Smoking: Bad For Business

Posted: April 24, 2014 | tobacco | bad for business, business, cigarette, smoking, tobacco | 0 Comments

According to a new study conducted by the University of Nottingham, smokers are 33% more likely to take time off than non-smokers. Given the plethora of negative health effects that smoking brings with it, this isn’t altogether surprising but when the university put a monetary amount on what these absences cost business, the result was staggering.

The university estimates that tobacco related work absences cost the UK £1.4 billion per year. Not familiar with converting pounds to dollars? That’s roughly $2,261,140,000. That’s a lot of digits. The study found that smokers average 2.7 more sick days per year than their non-smoking counterparts. The added absences increase a lack of productivity, which in turn means lower outputs and in the long run causes lower profits.

When companies make less money it harms the economy, the company itself and the smoker’s fellow employees. Think about it: when a company brings in more money people get raises, extra vacation time and added perks. Less income results in belt tightening which directly affects every employee.

As previously mentioned, this study focused on the UK. While the conversion of the estimated British loss worked out to about $2.2 billion, the amount that the U.S. could be losing due to smoking would likely be considerably larger.