Calling in sick? You’re in good company, New Jersey

More People call out sick on August 24th than any other workday. That’s an amazing fact on fortune.com reporting statistics from new research by leave management platform Flamingo Leave Tracker. The company analyzed five years’ worth of data, looking for the most common dates that workers call in sick.

The second most popular date that employees call out is February 13th, which ironically coincides to the day after the Super Bowl and of course Valentines Day.

The third most popular date is October 25th, then December 13th and April 18th in that order. Employers be prepared!

According to the research, 54% of all employees called in sick with a stomach bug. With Covid back on a slight increase, 25% of employees are calling in with the pesky condition and 9% of the employees call in with a case of anxiety or stress.

26% of Americans did not take a sick day, while 5% of Americans took more than 20 days.

New Jersey in October of 2019 put into law the Earned Sick Leave Act which states that any employer must give all full time, part time and temporary employees up to 40 hours a year for earned sick leave to care for themselves or a loved one. There are stiff penalties and fines to employers who do not adhere to this law.

Nationally there has been an influx of Americans admitting that they called out sick when they actually weren’t. According to a 2022 study by Moneypenny an amazing 50% of Americans make that call to take a sick day when they weren’t and 29% of those saying that they do so because of family reasons. If you couple those that are faking illness with those who actually are, the work force here in America continues to take a beating; such was the case with the pandemic. As many employees were home during the pandemic as soon as the pandemic eased up and employees started to return to their work place more people called in saying that they had the second round of Covid-19 when they really didn’t.

As a result of the crushing decrease in the workforce, goods, productivity and eventually profits took a pretty big loss in both corporate America and local small businesses. We saw too many great establishments who were in business for many years close their doors because of lack of employees and/or the increase in the cost of goods to do business.

Those here in New Jersey knowing that they have those 40 hours, or a week, to take when they are sick or to care for a loved one are less likely to call in a fake illness to their employer than the national percentage but to be fair it still happens here in the Garden State but not as much as the national average.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 weekend host Big Joe Henry. Any opinions expressed are Big Joe’s own.

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