British bosses are dreading the upcoming football World Cup as it will cost the businesses up to £1 billion in lost working hours.
The calculation of lost productivity during the World Cup involves mean hours of lost productivity, which has been measured as 2.34 hours per person, multiplying that by the total number of UK employees, estimated to be 28 million and multiplying the resulting lost hours of productivity during the World Cup with the hourly wage of £13.97.
The total cost in lost productivity is £950 million, the Chartered Management Institute revealed on Tuesday.
More than half (54 per cent) of UK employers are panicking over the impact of the World Cup, especially given the endless conversations about football and fake sick leaves by employees to watch the matches.
The UK police, which is tasked with keeping 12,000 football hooligans in control, too is worried about a sharp spurt in alcohol-related violence during the month-long tournament, especially at homes, given the past precedents.
During the last World Cup, on the days that England played in the tournament, the number of domestic violence cases rose by around 25 per cent, according to home office figures. When England was eliminated from the tournament, domestic violence cases rose to more than 30 per cent. The police last week kicked off a national awareness campaign around domestic abuse after a study by the Association of Chief Police Officers revealed a 30 per cent increase in reports of domestic abuse on England match days during the 2006 World Cup.