A report finds that smokers can hurt the bottom line of their employers, costing an estimated $4,256 each in 2012.
That’s an increase of more than 25% since 2005.
The Conference Board of Canada report says unsanctioned smoking breaks make up about 90% of the cost to employers, at a cost of $3,842 per full-time employee.
Productivity losses due to absenteeism add other costs to employers. On average, each daily smoker and recent quitter took almost two-and-a-half more sick days compared to employees who have never smoked—at a cost to their employers of $414 per year.
“The workplace is an ideal setting to combat smoking,” says Fares Bounajm, an economist with the Canadian Alliance for Sustainable Health Care and co-author of the report, Smoking Cessation and the Workplace: Benefits of Workplace Programs.
Smoking is also responsible for large losses in economic activity, due to its association with increased risk of short- and long-term disability and premature mortality.
Yet, many employers aren’t trying to change the smoking culture in their workplace. Less than half of respondents surveyed in the report offer a health risk assessment to all employees.
The report estimates that the prevalence rate of daily smokers in a typical Canadian company would fall by 35% by 2025 if a workplace cessation program were introduced.
In the absence of a workplace cessation program, the prevalence rate of daily smokers would be expected to fall by 13%.
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