This year’s National Sickie Day falls on the 3rd of February, with researchers predicting it will cost employers £34million in total. There was an estimated 350,000 absences* from work on the first Monday of February last year, indicating this is when employees are most likely to call in sick, leaving employers unsure whether they are telling the truth or not.
Savoy Stewart wanted to determine which sector is most likely to pull a sickie. They surveyed 2,160 employees from different sectors to discover the most common excuses and why they lied.
- Employees within the retail sector are the most likely to ‘pull a sickie’, with 76% admitting to lying
- Food poisoning was the top excuse, with 26.76% of workers using this to cover up the truth
- Teacher training and education employees are least likely to ‘pull a sickie’, only 24% confess to lying
