Smokers cost business £2bn
Smokers cost British companies more than £2bn ($3.2bn) last year, according to a study funded by the NHS and published on Friday.
In the first estimate of the direct cost to companies of staff who smoke, the London School of Economics said businesses lost £1.1bn from smoking-related illness absences, £914m from smoking breaks and £133m from fire damage. Indirect costs could be as high as a further £1.1bn.
“Smoking continues to have a detrimental impact on the UK workforce,” concluded the authors, led by Professor Alistair McGuire. “There remains a strong commercial case for employers to further reduce smoking prevalence among their employees, including through the introduction of workplace smoking cessation programmes.”
The work, sponsored by NHS Smokefree, marks the latest effort by the government to strengthen efforts to tackle smoking, a leading cause of illness and death that imposes a substantial burden on the health service as well as the economy.
