The number of fired gambling addicts is growing
Excessive passion for gambling leads not only to the loss of personal funds. After independent expert research and surveys, it became known that gambling addiction has caused the reduction of 7% employees in Russian companies. Since employees devoted a significant part of their working time to their hobbies, management was forced to take extreme measures. As expected, the greatest reductions occurred in the IT sector. This is where the largest number of people gambled during working hours in casinos and other gambling sites turned out to be.
According to surveys conducted by specialists at the Super Job service, it was found that it is mainly employees of medium and large companies who play. The percentage distribution looks like this:
- financial sphere – 8%;
- retail and wholesale sales – 6%;
- production – 5%;
- construction and logistics – 3%.
As mentioned above, IT employees are the most susceptible to gambling. They account for 17% of all those fired due to gambling addiction. Since the research was conducted anonymously, it was possible to find out that the main reasons for layoffs were absenteeism and theft of company property for the purpose of selling it to cover debts.
The surveys were conducted in the third ten days of January 2021. The participants were not only dismissed employees, but also company executives, HR specialists, etc. The main questions were: “Were any company personnel dismissed due to gambling addiction?” and “For what reasons were you dismissed?”
As recent surveys have shown, the country's restrictions on playing in virtual casinos do not help to cope with the problem. Much more effective would be measures aimed at implementing the projects "Responsible Gaming" and "Combating Gambling Addiction".
