Benefits January 16, 2007

Worker Fatigue Leads to $136B Loss in Productivity

January 16, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Sixty-six percent of workers say that fatigue has led to lost health-related productivity at work, a cost that a new study estimates to total $136 billion.
Reported by

According to HR.BLR.com, the study, which included interviews with 29,000 workers and is published in the January issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that 26% of workers without fatigue reported health-related lost productivity.

In terms of lost time, workers with fatigue averaged 5.6 hours, compared to 3.3 hours for those that did not report fatigue.

The study found that 38% of workers had experienced “low levels of energy, poor sleep, or a feeling of fatigue” during the past two weeks.

According to HR.BLR.com, fatigue that stems from health conditions such as depression or anxiety accounts for only a small part of lost productivity at work, with more of the lost productive time being attributed to a range of other physical and mental health problems that may occur when fatigue is present.

«