Sickness absence grips the UK as 3.6 million staff call in sick

The UK is suffering its worst ever week for sickness absence, according to reports.

Absence management firm FirstCare claims that more than 3.6 million employees have rung in ill since Monday.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

Flu, winter vomiting, coughs, colds and other ailments have brought Britain to its knees at the beginning of 2008.

FirstCare’s Aaron Ross told the Metro newspaper: “More than 3.6m employees are currently on their sick beds. This is the worst period of sickness we have ever seen. The trend shows no sign of letting up.”