Hangovers Cost the U.K. Economy $1.8 Billion a Year, Study Says

Employees showing up at work hungover or drunk cost Britain's economy up to $1.8 billion a year, the Institute of Alcohol Studies says.

The UK Government’s official estimate suggests that alcohol costs the British economy £7.3 billion a year. Yet this figure is almost 10 years out of date (it relates to 2009/10), and it is based on an evidence review carried out by the government over 15 years ago. It comprises three elements: the loss of working age people from the labour force due to premature death, higher unemployment among heavy drinkers and higher rates of sickness absence due to alcohol consumption.

What the official estimate leaves out, due to a lack of robust data, is presenteeism: the cost to the economy of workers who make it in to work, but are less productive once they get there due to their drinking. One of the main causes of alcohol-related presenteeism is people working hungover or intoxicated, so we decided to try and explore how common this is, and to try and put a number on its cost to the economy.

We surveyed 3,400 British workers and found that 42% had ever been to work hungover or under the influence of alcohol. 9% had done so in the past six months. The average annual number of work days each person spent drunk or hungover in our survey was 0.6-0.7, implying that 75,000-89,000 workers are hungover or intoxicated on any given work day.

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