Smoking Employees Cost Companies $5,816 Annually

Smokers cost their employers an extra $5,816 annually compared to nonsmoking workers, according to researchers. The costs primarily come from higher health care expenses, excess absenteeism and lost productivity due to smoke breaks, according to the study, which was published in the journal Tobacco Control.

'This research should help businesses make better informed decisions about their tobacco policies,' said lead researcher Micah Berman of Ohio State University.

'We constructed our calculations such that individual employers can plug in their own expenses to get more accurate estimates of their own costs.'


The extra expense that an employer will pay on average for a smoking employee could run as high as $10,125, the study found.

One eight-minute smoke break a day could cost employers $1,641 annually, based on the average hourly rate plus benefits ($26.49) earned by a smoking employee.

But the researchers say it is more likely that employers lose even more money - up to $3,077 annually - to smoke breaks, now that most companies ban smoking directly outside of their offices, so employees must venture further from the office to puff a cigarette.

In addition to smoke breaks, the researchers say companies should also account for annual costs associated with excess absenteeism ($517 annually), reduced productivity related to the effects of nicotine addiction ($462 annually) and extra health care costs for self-insured employers ($2,056 annually).

Berman calls the cost estimates conservative because, saying it even takes into account the annual pension savings from a smoker's early death, which amount to roughly $296 per year.

'Employers try to correct for the idea that smokers cost more by paying them somewhat less,' lead researcher Micah Berman of Ohio State University told NBC News. 'Even when we adjusted for that, smokers still cost more,' he said.

By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated a decade ago that productivity losses and medical costs amount to about $3,400 per smoker annually.