A Record Number of People Called Out of Work for Super Bowl Monday

If we ever needed more proof that the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday, just take a look at the number of people who are calling out “sick” today.

Courtesy of some statistics provided by UKG, an HR platform, it’s expected that a record number of U.S. employees will be calling out with the case of the Mondays on February 10. How much? How about 22.6 million people are expected to take “a sick day” today.

This is a hugeeee difference from the year prior, which saw 16.1 million people take off. The previous high, for those keeping track, was in 2023 when 18.8 million workers faked a sickness called out.

Everyone is Taking Off Work on Super Bowl Monday

To be fair, the bulk of those estimated 22.6 million are people putting in paid time off requests. That’s expected to be about 12.9 million. according to UKG. Another 12.9 million will take some sort of half day, typically coming into work late.

Julie Develin, who is a senior partner of HCM advisory at UKG, said in the press release that they launched this survey years ago to “start a conversation to help organizations prepare for unplanned absences” with the bulk of the study looking directly at this particular date.

“Although a record number of employees plan to miss work on Monday, we continue to see forward progress with managers and employees having more open conversations about taking the day off, swapping shifts, or making arrangements to come in late so that the business is covered,” she explained.

A study by Talk Research in partnership with Coors Light found that 55 percent of the 3,000 people polled wished that Monday was a holiday. A CBS News affiliate even ran a segment discussing the logistics of labeling the event as an official day off. They even speculated about moving the Super Bowl to Saturday, but we know it’s the NFL, and they control Sundays so that likely will never happen.

When can we get a president who runs on a platform that promises to instill Super Bowl Monday as an official holiday? That’ll be something we can all get behind, right?