Member

Of course, domestic abuse also has a financial impact, both on victims and the organisations they work for. Over one in five women take time off work because of abuse, and 86% of victims say that abuse negatively impacts their work performance due to them being distracted, tired or unwell. Abuse stunts career progression, and research undertaken by Vodafone and KPMG has found that the potential loss of earnings for each victim is £5,800 a year. This clearly has severe knock-on impacts for businesses and the economy. In 2019, the Home Office estimated that domestic abuse costs the UK economy around £14 billion a year in lost economic output. A mandatory domestic abuse policy is therefore pro-worker, pro-business and pro-growth. Indeed, a study in New Zealand found that introducing domestic abuse protections in the workplace has cut costs for businesses in that country and led to increased levels of productivity.