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In an interesting and labour-saving development, a Herald article on the economic cost of sick days sparked quite a discussion in the comments thread of something I wrote yesterday about something completely different. This is the labour-saving bit now:

Gwan said...

May I draw your attention to the article on how it's allegedly cheaper to skive off work? The Herald's inability to comprehend basic maths strikes again...

Anonymous said...

the numbers seem fairly solid, if you think there are 1.3 million people working in new zealand.

but it's one of those numbers-that-mean-absolutely-nothing stories.

and the answer to all of them? so f*cking what?

Anonymous said...

actually, I take that back. the story doesn't state how large the NZ workforce is. first, big mistake.

second: WTF are the 700 and 900 about? per day? per week? per year? and they conflict with the $1500 figure stated in the intro. where does that one come from?

in conclusion: bollocks.

gazzaj said...

The problem with the maths is that in terms of *total* cost over the whole workforce, people turning up to work sick costs more, because it happens more often - 11.1 days/year vs 4.2.

But in terms of an individual person on an individual day it (obviously) costs more to take a sicky than it does to turn up to work - but the headline says the exact opposite.

There aren't enough numbers quoted to check their maths, but basically everything in the article is consistent, just contradicted by the headline, which is not what the study says at all. The Herald is blatantly lying to you.

Anyway the whole thing *is* bollocks because it's all built on the assumption that a sick worker is "half as productive" as a well one. I don't know about you but I doubt a lot of scientific research went into coming up with that number.

Wansbone said...

To start with I gave the benefit of the doubt to the reporter, and assumed that there was something study about people coming in sick lengthen their own period of sickness, and make other people sick.

But based on the final two paragraph summarising the reports conclusions, I think the report must have simply been about working out the cost to ill health on the economy. And the reporter just didn't get it. You would think reporters would run their draft stories past their interviewees if they weren't sure...

Gwan said...

Yeah from the headline I would have assumed that that would be the story as well, but apparently not. If you can't work out that coming in sick = (allegedly) 50% productivity loss but not coming in at all = 100% productivity loss then you're a tard frankly.

Anonymous said...

I noticed the article refered to pulling a sicky, which I thought meant taking a day off work and claiming illness rather than actually necessarily being ill. Meaning that the article claimed people who turned up to work ill were less productive than people who stayed home healthy (or just feeling lazy).

To be fair to the Herald, the original NZPA article and headline was atrocious, and reporter Isaac Davison - in the adapted piece that is in the physical paper today - has done a reasonable job of polishing a turd, even if he's just polished it with another turd, Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly. Anyway, thanks to all who contributed to the discussion, and sorry I couldn't write anything you actually wanted to talk about.