A recent survey has found that UK smokers find it harder to find work, love, and even a place to live simply because they are a smoker. If you a looking for a reason to quit, these findings may just give you the motivation you need.
Employers are hesitant to hire smokers
The survey, conducted by Lake Research, questioned 1,800 non-smokers and 2,000 smokers to gain insight on attitudes towards smoking.
41% of participants admitted that they may be hesitant to hire a smoker and research from Stanford University in the US has found that smokers are indeed at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a job.
Their study compared the reemployment rates over a 12 month period of 131 smokers and 120 non-smokers and found that 55.6% of non-smokers found work within a year compared to just 26.6% of smokers.
Smokers face annual loss of £2,759
Smoking is known to be related to lower productivity, due to causing higher rates of illness and absence from the workplace. Research from Landman Economics on behalf of Action on Smoking and Health found that smokers were 33% more likely to be absent from work with smokers taking an average of 2.74 additional days of sick leave per year compared to non-smokers.
The research concluded that smoking is associated with a higher chance of being unemployed and UK smokers earn on average 6.8% less than non-smokers.
It also identified that working smokers in the UK face a double financial penalty as they earn on average £1,424 less than smokers per year, and also have the additional cost of their smoking habit, costing the average smoker £1,335 per year. This totals a loss of £2,759 per year.
44% of non-smokers won’t date a smoker
The Lake Research study reported that almost half of non-smokers stated they would never date someone who smoked, and 54% would not like to kiss someone who had just had a cigarette.
The study found that women are more averse to smoking than men, with 56% of female participants believing that smoking should be banned.
The University of Bristol has found that people are more likely to find smokers less attractive than non-smokers, in a unique study involving identical twins.
Over 500 participants were shown photos of 23 sets of identical twins made up of one smoker and one non-smoker. These images were prototypes of the twins faces created to eliminate the differences expression, pose, or lighting could produce.
Shockingly, participants were able to identify the smoker 70% of the time, and both men and women predominantly chose the non-smoker as the more attractive of the two.
As discussed in our previous post ‘The effects of smoking on the body’, smoking can take a toll on your appearance by increasing wrinkles and giving the skin a dull and even greyish tone.
If you have been considering making a stop smoking attempt, whatever your reasons may be, and would like to find out more about how an e-cigarette could help, pop in to your local Evapo store and speak to a member of our team. You can also reach out to our online customer service team and shop our full range of vape kits and e-liquids for convenient home delivery.
At a glance
- Smoking is associated with a higher chance of being unemployed
- UK smokers face a double financial penalty as they earn on average £1,424 less than smokers per year, and also have the additional cost of their smoking habit, costing the average smoker £1,335 per year
- 44% of non-smokers stated they would never date someone who smoked
Sources
Stanford University 05/2016
Landman Economics 09/2020
University of Bristol 12/2017
dailymail.com 06/04/2022
psychologytoday.com 04/2016
