Absence from work among non-manual employees has fallen to the lowest levels for five years – from 7.6 days in 1998 to 6.5 days last year. For manual workers the averages are 9.4 and 9.2 respectively. The figures come from a survey by the Confederation of British Industry and PPP Healthcare launched today at a CBI conference on Managing Absence, Sickness and Stress.

The results show that the UK has one of the lowest absence levels in the EU, an average of 7.8 days a year per employee. Its short-term absence rate of 3.6% of working time compares with 4.4% in Sweden, 5.6% in France and Germany and 6.9% in Italy. Only Denmark, at 3.5%, had a lower rate. Significantly, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, along with the Netherlands, Portugal and France all had much higher long-term absence rates (between 9% and 13.3%) than the rest of the EU.

The average cost of absence increased to £438 per employee. The CBI says this equates to £10.5bn if applied to the whole UK workforce.

Employers need to benchmark their absence rates against organisations of similar size and in the same sector, say the researchers. Comparing performance with the overall average could lead to unnecessary concern or worse, complacency.

Clear commitment from senior managers was found to have most impact on the problem of absence with return-to-work interviews an important tool.

While he welcomed the downward trend, PPP's director of corporate healthcare development, Dudley Lusted said: "It's time to move on and get a better grip on longer term absence and stress related problems. Tackling their underlying causes and supporting people with early access to medical and psychological care are key to achieving the 5.3 days' absence levels currently attained by the best performing companies."

Richard Byatt