- Construction, entertainment, recreation and food service businesses have twice the national average number of employees with substance use disorders
- Industries dominated by women or older adults have a two-thirds lower rate of substance abuse
- Industries that have higher numbers of workers with alcohol use disorders also have more illicit drug, pain medication and marijuana use disorders
- Employers are most concerned about the costs of benefits (95%), the ability to hire qualified workers (93%) and the costs of worker’s compensation (84%). Drug misuse impacts all of those concerns, but prescription drug misuse and illegal drug sale or use were much lower concerns (67 percent and 61 percent).
- The cost of untreated substance use disorder ranges from $2,600 per employee in agriculture to more than $13,000 per employee in the information and communications sector
- Encouragingly, workers in recovery have lower turnover rates and are less likely to miss work days, less likely to be hospitalized and have fewer doctors visits
- For some industries, employers could save more than $8,400 for each employee
- Healthcare costs for employees who misuse or abuse prescription drugs are 3 times the costs for an average employee
EMBARGOED UNTIL 9 A.M. CT
March 22, 2017
Americans Struggling with Opioid Addiction Miss Nearly 50 Percent More Work,
but Employers do not Understand the Business Costs, according to NationalSafety Council survey
NSC, Shatterproof and NORC at the University of Chicago develop a tool to help employers understand the true costs of drug use at work
Itasca, IL – Workers with substance use disorders miss nearly 50 percent more days than their peers, and up to 6 weeks of work annually, according to analysis from the National Safety Council, NORC at the University of Chicago, and Shatterproof. Despite the alarming new statistics, there is a persistent gap between employer perceptions of impact and the actual human and business costs of substance use. A new survey from the National Safety Council found that only 39 percent of employers view prescription drug use as a threat to safety, and only 24 percent feel it is a problem, despite 71 percent saying they have experienced an issue.
In response to alarming data, and to help employers understand the need to act quickly, Shatterproof, NSC and NORC at the University of Chicago have created the Substance Use Cost Calculator, which employers can use to quickly compute what the crisis means to their workforce.
Other findings from the analysis and survey include: