Based on an average hourly wage of £12.50, the law firm Brabners Chaffe Street calculated that during the tournament, if half of British workers surf the net for an hour a day, it will cost Britain nearly £4 billion in lost time.
Here’s a story from the Times>>
Frankly, an hour a day is peanuts. How about 3 matches per day at 90 minutes each?
Measure that lost productivity worldwide, and you can see why the World Cup is so much fun for business.
In the USA, it’s another reason why soccer isn’t popular in America. There’s a secret plot led by the Republican party to make sure nothing cuts into business profits, not even the World Cup. 🙂
The World Cup will likely cost American companies 10 minutes of productivity a day for 21 days, according to the outplacement company of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That comes to about $121.7 million in lost productivity in the US, a large figure, particularly painful for any company dominated by Englishmen, Germans or Brazilians perhaps. More on this here >>
But that’s nothing compared to the rest of the world…
In Brazil, things may be even more dire. Brazilian Michael Reade, who runs Saci Solutions, a New York software database firm, notes that there is a huge increase in the number of televisions sold in the country prior to the games, that banks close and cities virtually shut down during big games by the Brazilian team, who are the favorites to repeat their 2002 title.
What if a manager tells an employee he can’t go see the game. “That doesn’t happen,” Reade says, adding that he has already mapped out his World Cup schedule in New York.
“I will be watching 19 games between June 9th and June 23, which is the first phase,” before the knockout games, he says. “Meetings will have to be scheduled at different times.” Of course he could cut down if forced. “If I was not self-employed,” he concludes, “I would negotiate to only see the Brazilian games.”
Italy isn’t any better. “It shuts down completely,” says Elisabetta Bourtin, a former Fendi employee who now lives in New York. “Everyone goes to bars or friends houses. Those that remain at work, she adds, will still take off the two hours or so needed to watch the game on a televison there.
In Malaysia, here’s what a public official said about the World Cup and work:
“I have no problem if they like to watch all the matches but make sure their productivity is not affected.
“Let me remind them that we will not give them any time-off or accept flimsy excuses.
“My advice is to watch matches which are interesting and record the others for later viewing.
In the Middle East, one in five employees plans to take time off or reduce working hours to watch the World Cup. Here’s a survey:
“Just over half said they plan to work shorter days, with the rest indicating that they planned either to request days off using annual leave, or simply report sick and stay at home to watch the games.”
also: “only five per cent of respondents reported having facilities provided by their employer to watch the World Cup in their place of work, as a way of easing the expected productivity slump.”
At Soccer Blog, we encourage “work-abstinence” during the World Cup. Remember, there’s always a live feed on your computer at work…