The “Sickest” Days Of 2020: They Days Where The Most People Called In Sick

Feeling sick? Maybe just a bit hungover or want to eke out a little bit more of the weekend? Shoot, maybe you are just one of the legions of American workers who are just plain exhausted from the real world.

Between politics and a global pandemic, who doesn’t need a day off from paperwork to do anything else? That’s right everyone! However, these sick days aren’t as random as they might feel.

It turns out across the country, when you’re “sick,” so is everyone else. For the second year in a row, we analyzed our website traffic to find the days when the most people are playing hooky.

The results? Days around holidays still have people fake coughing, but so do some other unexpected days.

Most Interesting Findings

• Don’t believe politics are impacting the workplace? We saw the largest surge of interest in calling in sick on the 26th of January, a staggering 740% increase. To top it off, this was on a Sunday, not a usual day people are looking to call in. The only reason we can think of? The Impeachment trials
• While we can’t say whether people were watching them or just exhausted, it’s certainly different than 2019 when the “sickest” day was the day after Christmas.
• Monday is the sickest day of the week- with 19% of our visitors trying to get out of the first day of the week.
• 4 plain old ordinary Mondays had a huge surge of people calling in sick.
• One trio of months (August, September, and October) saw more traffic than other months. Fall fever?
• It was a very antsy January, with three days making the top 10.
• Friday is the week day with the least fake coughing.
• 5 of the top 10 sickest days were holiday related

Sickest Days Of 2020

1. 1/26/2020 – Trump’s Impeachment Trial
2. 1/20/2020 – MLK Day
3. 12/26/2020 – Day After Christmas
4. 4/13/2020 – Day After Easter
5. 3/9/2020 – Monday
6. 1/2/2020 – Day After New Year’s Day
7. 4/6/2020 – Monday
8. 3/2/2020 – Monday Before Super Tuesday
9. 1/13/2020 – Monday
10. 10/5/2020 – Monday

We Determined The Days People Are Most Likely To Call In Sick

For this data, we turned to our own website traffic. We analyzed traffic patterns and visitors to our article on Tips For Calling In Sick- Even When You’re Not. We looked at all website visits for 2020.

While we can’t guarantee everyone searching how to call in sick will do it, or that they’re not planning ahead, it seems a pretty safe bet they’re actively trying to get out of work. In particular, with the high tide of traffic that comes in the early AM hours.

Since traffic fluctuations can make daily visitors alone an unreliable method for comparison, we measured traffic changes day over day to identify days where interest in calling in sick surged. The higher the day over day traffic increase, the more people calling in sick.

There Are Worse Things Than Calling In Sick In The Middle Of A Pandemic

While holidays remained a popular choice for calling in sick, so too did ordinary Mondays and other stressful occasions. If there was ever a year that called for some mental health days, it was 2020. This isn’t even considering the fact that you might have been a little more inclined to call in sick with minor symptoms such as a sore throat you might have ignored prior.

So don’t feel too bad if you yourself called in to help your kid with virtual school or scream incoherently into your pillow.

However, if everyday makes you want to play hooky, it might be time to find a job that makes you feel a little less sick.

The Sickest Days Of 2020

Author

Kathy Morris

Kathy is the head of content at Zippia with a knack for engaging audiences. Prior to joining Zippia, Kathy worked at Gateway Blend growing audiences across diverse brands. She graduated from Troy University with a degree in Social Science Education.