• On average 337 people a week called in sick during February leading to it being labelled ‘the cruellest month’.
• Absentee rates on Mondays are almost DOUBLE that of Fridays (1832 compared to 1046) across the first half of the year.
• National Sickie Day (1st Feb) lived up to its name with the highest number of people absent from work.

New statistics released today by ELAS Business Support show the absentee rate for the first half of this year – and they make for interesting reading. The average absentee rate was calculated by taking the total daily absence rate for each month and dividing it by the number of weeks in the month. January, March and May each had five weeks and, therefore, a higher overall absence rate but the weekly numbers paint a different picture. 

Hunter S Thompson famously described it as ‘the cruellest month’ and it appears that UK workers agree; February had the highest average rate of absenteeism across the first half of the year. An average of 337 people a week called in sick during February, compared to 318 in March, 314 in June, 294 in January, 283 in May and 282 in April. February’s numbers show it might be renamed Fed-up-uary with the statistics also showing a huge spike in the absentee rate on Mondays. The consistent absentee numbers throughout the rest of the week indicate people might be taking advantage of a long weekend.

The Boomtown Rats don’t like Mondays and, it appears, UK workers don’t either. These new figures show that Mondays are consistently blue with the absentee rate almost DOUBLE that of Fridays (1832 compared to 1046) across the first half of the year. 21.4% of all employees surveyed called in sick on a Monday compared with just 12.2% on Fridays. May had two bank holidays so, unsurprisingly, was the only month where Monday did not have the highest number of absences.

National Sickie Day (1^st Feb) lived up to its name with the highest number of people (95) absent from work, closely followed by Mon 22^nd Feb (92). 86 people were absent on 16^th May and 6^th June while a total of 80 people called out from work on 18^th January (Blue Monday). April shows up as the healthiest month with the lowest number of absences recorded across the board. David Southall is a consultant at ELAS specialising in employment law. He says: “Employers should ensure they have robust return to work procedures in place, part of which should be to discuss in detail the reason why an employee was absent. Should a health issue be suggested, the employer could follow up by seeking to obtain a medical report; this will reveal whether or not the employee is properly addressing any underlying medical condition. Notes from all return to work meetings should be retained in case they need to be referred back to at future meetings with the same employee.”