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Absenteeism cost calculator

Absence gets tracked as a percentage, and a percentage moves nobody. This calculator turns it into dollars. It counts the salary paid for days not worked, what covering the absence cost in someone else's hours and the overtime you had to pay on top. Every amount is shown separately, so you can check it line by line.

Updated August 4, 2026

The daily salary is worked out over 260 working days, which is 52 weeks of 5. If the absence was absorbed internally with no cover and no overtime, leave the last four fields blank.

What this absence costs you

Enter the annual salary and the number of days absent to see the calculation.

How this is calculated

The first three lines are money that actually left the business: salary paid for days not worked, replacement hours and overtime. Indirect costs are then estimated at 25 % of that total. They stand in for the team losing its rhythm, work picked up late and the manager's coordination time. That 25 % is deliberately conservative: published estimates put indirect costs far higher, commonly between 50 % and 100 % of direct costs. The Conference Board of Canada puts the direct cost of absenteeism at 2.4 % of gross annual payroll and explicitly excludes indirect costs from that figure. We would rather give you a number you can defend to your finance lead than an impressive one. The real figure is higher.

The other tools

A high absence rate always has a cause

The dollar figure tells you the size of the problem, not where it comes from. The cause is nearly always elsewhere: workload, climate, a manager. Thirty minutes to name it, at no cost.

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