Smokers cost businesses 2.1bn a year due to 'fag breaks' and sickness

Smokers are costing businesses 2.1billion each year through sickness and time-wasting cigarette breaks, a report has claimed.

It found that 1.77 extra sick days a year are taken by each smoker at a cost of 1.1billion to firms.

And smoking breaks during the working day were found to be just as costly, amounting to almost 1billion.

The report, by the London School of Economics, described the costs as staggering and said that firms could make major savings by helping the staff to quit smoking.

Professor Alistair Mcguire, of the LSE, said: The formula reveals just how much of businesses bottom line is going up in smoke every year.

The 2.1billion doesnt even include the indirect costs to company image from employees smoking outside the premises, or the dissatisfaction felt by non-smoking workers who perceive smoking colleagues to be shirking as they take smoke-breaks.

These costs are attributed to the cost of productivity losses due to both excess sickness-absence in smoking employees and from smoking breaks taken by smoking employees, the cost of commercial fire damage attributable to smoking at work and the indirect costs imposed on employers from employee smoking.

Dr Linda Bauld, of Bath University and the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, said: Research has shown that offering "stop smoking" support in the workplace is an effective way to help smokers to quit.

What works best is a combination of support from a trained adviser, either in groups or one-to-one, and access to stop smoking medication.