© 1975 Medical Council on Alcohol
research-article
Alcoholism and Employment *
Maudsley Hospital London
The magnitude of the alcoholism problem amongst the British workforce has not yet been recognised. The cost to government and employers is such that economic self-interest demands that the occupational health services devote more attention to detecting and aiding alcoholic employees. Special occupational hazards and alcoholism-inducing factors are well known, but some companies continue to condone practices which encourage heavy drinking at work. One of the barriers to the development of preventative and rehabilitation schemes may be that those responsible for the initiation of such schemes—company directors and doctors—are amongst those with the greatest risk of alcoholism.
Various estimates have suggested that there are between 280,000 and 350,000 alcoholics in England and Wales.1 2 As some 13.5% of alcoholics are either unemployable or retired, 3 it is reasonable to assume that in the United Kingdom as a whole there must be at least 260,000 alcoholics amongst the male workforce of 16.1 million and 40,000 alcoholics in the female workforce of 9.1 million. As yet, employers have little appreciation of the magnitude of the problem. Hawker and her colleagues4 asked 279 London companies how many alcoholics they believed they employed. The estimate these companies arrived at was 3.5 per 1,000 males and 0.09 per 1,00C females, suggesting that at least four-fifths of alcoholics go undetected at their workplace.