The Costs of Employee Substance Abuse

The national average estimate for the cost of substance abuse to a company per user is $7,000 in lost productivity, accidents, absenteeism and replacing fired and suspended employees.

Use the following formula to estimate the cost of employee substance abuse in your business:

1. Estimate the percentage of your total number of employees that use drugs. The national average is 17 percent.

2. Multiply the number of employees you have by this percentage.

3. Multiply that by the national average cost per substance abuser ($7,000).

4. The result is the annual cost of substance abuse within your company.

Now call us at 1-800-760-TEST and compare that number to the cost of establishing a drug testing program to help reduce employee substance abuse -- you can't afford not to!

Employee substance abuse costs you money! Abusers are:

• 2.5 times more likely to use 8 or more days of employee sick time
• 3.6 times more likely to be involved in accidents

• 5 times more likely to file a workers' compensation claim
• 3 times more likely to be late for work
• 2.2 times more likely to require early dismissal
• 3 times more likely to abuse the normal level of sick benefits

Employee substance abuse costs your company time and money; regular drug testing increases your productivity and profits!