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WORLD

Two million off sick after New Year break

05.01.2011 [18:24]
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Baku, January 5 (AZERTAC). Nearly two million workers called in sick on the first day back after the New Year break, with the number of people struck down by a cold or flu increasing by 12 per cent.

The cost to the economy is estimated to have been some £302 million, the research showed.

Of those calling in sick on Tuesday, 275,000 blamed a cold, cough or flu for their absence, at a cost of £45 million, and 12 per cent up on last year.

The figures were collated by First Care, an outsourcing firm used by major companies such as Coca-Cola and British Gas to manage their workers` absences. It has extrapolated the national figure from its database of 100,000 workers.

A total of 1.83 million workers were absent across the whole of Britain, about 6.3 per cent of the total country`s workforce. This was 535,000 less than last year, when 2.36 million people decided not to return to work.

The average across the year is 1.58 million off sick, which increases to about 1.7 million during winter.

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