Smokers Cost Employers Almost $6,000 Annually

Smokers cost their employers nearly $6,000 a year more than staff who don’t smoke, researchers said in what they say is the first comprehensive look at the issue. And, in what some might see as a dark twist, they’ve taken into account any savings that might come because smokers tend to die younger than non-smokers, drawing less in pension costs, NBC News reports.

The findings support a growing trend among employers to not only ban smoking in the workplace, but to refuse to hire smokers in the first place, argues Micah Berman of Ohio State University, who led the study.

“Our best estimate of the annual excess cost to employ a smoker is $5,816,” they wrote in the journal Tobacco Control. Researchers took a conservative approach whenever possible, Berman said, erring on the side of caution. “Employers try to correct for the idea that smokers cost more by paying them somewhat less. Even when we adjusted for that — smokers still cost more,” he said.

They looked at the lowest possible costs for people taking smoke breaks — just eight minutes a day lost to smoking. That would cost employers $1,641.14 a year, they said. But it’s more likely much higher — $3,077, they calculated, based on two 15-minute smoke breaks a day. Lost productivity was based on the average wages and benefits paid a smoker working full time: $26.49 an hour, with 232 days worked a year.

Excess healthcare costs of smokers, who have higher rates of lung disease, heart disease, various cancers and other illnesses: $2,055.77.

Most employers now offer 401K plans, which pay out based on the investments in them and not based on an employee’s lifespan. Berman’s team incorporated the death benefit calculation for the 21% of employers who still offer defined benefit pensions, and found the total lifetime savings per person was $10,123 for a male smoker and $383 for a woman — lower because women tend to have less money coming in a pension.

So-called “presentee-ism” costs $461.92 a year for each employee who smokes, they calculated. Excess absences cost $517.