Alcohol and Employment Problems

The cost to industry of all sickness absence has been estimated at half a billion working days a year. Within this total some absences can be pinpointed to specific causes. Conditions like bronchitis and backache are well‐known and account for substantial parts of the overall scene. Another cause of absence is down to the misuse of alcohol. On the self certificate that the employee fills out on his or her return for work it is highly unlikely that the true reason for absence will be given. The cause is probably going to be shown as “stomach upset”, “cold”,“backache” or some other relatively common, non‐contentious and difficult to disprove ailment. This of course raises the question about the real incidence of some of these common complaints, but that discussion will have to wait for another day!