Hangovers ‘cost’ Australia $3bn annually

Australian workers call in sick for a total of 11.5 million work days per year and costing the economy AUS$3bn (US$2.2bn) every year.

Hangovers are causing 11.5 million “sick days” a year at a cost of $3 billion to the Australian economy, reports The Age.

Using figures from the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, the researchers from Adelaide’s Flinders University found that Australian missed around 2.6 million days of work due to alcohol and drug habits. The majority of them, 1.6m, were attributable to alcohol alone.

The researchers then used two different methods to work out the total loss in financial productivity. The first mechanism multiplied $AUS267.70 – the average one-day wage plus 20 per cent employer on-costs – by the self-reported number of days off (2.6 million). This equaled a total cost of US$500m annually.

The second measure, which reached the $US2.2bn figure, multiplied 267.70 dollars by the estimated difference in illness or injury absenteeism between those who used alcohol or drugs compared to alcohol abstainers.

The lead author of the study, Ann Roach said: “Alcohol puts a bit of a tax on your immune system… and it’s quite implicated in mental health problems. If people are prone towards anxiety and depression, they often self medicate with alcohol,”

However, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, released in May this of year, Australia’s consumption of alcohol is at its lowest level since 1960 – at two standard drinks a day.

But Roach said Australia’s older age group – the “Baby Boomers” born between 1946-1964 was still in danger of drinking too much.

“There has also been a statistically significant increase in Baby Boomers drinking at risky levels. We’ve never seen that before,” she said.