The number of employees who called in sick today is treble the count for the whole of last week, research finds.

The number of employees who called in sick today is treble the count for the whole of last week, research finds.

Business support specialist ELAS monitors absenteeism through a service whereby clients’ staff phone a trained absence manager rather than phoning their boss to call in sick.

At 10am today, the organisation’s Absence Assist service saw 98 absences reported, compared to 32 for the whole of last week.

The organisation blames record-breaking weekend temperatures, which have at times made the UK hotter than both Spain and Italy, for the increase in sickies.

Peter Mooney, ELAS head of employment law says, ‘We usually see a rise in absenteeism when the weather gets really nice in July or August, but we’ve never seen a spike like this in March.

‘Whether it’s to enjoy today’s sunshine or to recover from spending yesterday in the beer garden, it seems the sunshine is to blame.’

After a weekend in which parts of Scotland recorded their highest March temperatures since 1965, forecasters say they expect the sunshine and high temperatures to continue for the week before returning to more normal March levels by the weekend.

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