Ahead of this weekend’s Spring Bank Holiday, Catapult has highlighted the scale of the workplace absenteeism crisis in the UK.

Currently, UK businesses are losing 6.9 days a year per employee due to absenteeism, which is costing the British economy £100 billion, Catapult says. UK employees missed 131m days in total in 2014, while absenteeism is estimated to cost the average UK business £554 per employee. The company says that nearly a quarter (23%) of UK firms report ‘non-genuine absence’ as their top cause short term absence for non-manual workers and one in three (30%) businesses also cite this as their top reason for short term absence for manual workers.

Oli Johnson, co-founder of Catapult, said, “The scale of the UK’s absenteeism problem is simply staggering. British firms are currently losing nearly a week’s worth of productivity from employees and this is having a detrimental effect on their bottom lines. SMEs are most affected by this problem due to much smaller workforces, they are simply not able to absorb the impact of an absent member of staff.”

“As the UK enters the summer period, its absenteeism problem is only likely to be exacerbated, especially with standout sporting events like Euro 2016 and the Olympics which will further compound the problem of non-genuine employee absences.”

“However, technology is now disrupting the traditional recruitment model. On-demand hiring platforms, such as Catapult, are now able to source quality candidates in under an hour in a cost effective way, so a business doesn’t need to miss a beat, especially during a busy time like this weekend’s bank holiday.”