Solar Eclipse Could Supposedly Cost Almost $700M In Lost Productivity; You Should Watch Anyway

By Stephen Gossett in News on Aug 21, 2017 4:25PM

Getty Images / Photo: Scott Olson

Whenever America finds itself in the midst of a shared moment of enthusiasm, you can always rely on some number cruncher to wallop us over our collective head with the ledger and provide a good lost-productivity shaming. With Great American Eclipse anticipation reaching its frenzied peak, a Chicago-based outplacement firm has slapped a price tag on our celestial wonder—and it's pretty steep: $694 million in productivity.

It'll take about 20 minutes for workers to gather up their eclipse glasses, colanders or homemade viewing contraptions and watch the eclipse, estimates Challenger Gray & Christmas. The firm compares that time with hourly wage numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the number of adult full-time workers to reach its almost $700 million conclusion.

In their defense against any potential charges of buzzkillery, Challenger was quick to note that the figure is actually a drop in the overall corporate bucket. "Compared to the amount of wages being paid to an employee over a course of a year, it is very small. It's not going to show up in any type of macroeconomic data," the firm said, according to Reuters.

And in releasing the projection, Challenger urged businesses to welcome rather than resist the team-building gifts the heavens hath bestowed. “Rather, looking for how to turn this lack of productivity into a way to increase morale and strengthen the team is a much better use of the eclipse,” said Andrew Challenger, Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., said in a release.

Even with the positive spin, though, Challenger is garnering a bit of shade (appropriately enough) for how it determines its numbers. Recode pushed back:

"...Challenger Gray’s methodology for this stuff doesn’t change: It guesstimates how much time Americans Spend Doing Something, then uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to guesstimate what that amounts to in hourly wages. That’s it... Challenger Gray’s methodology assumes that workers are working every minute that they’re at work. And that diversions like March Madness and eclipses are the only time they lift their gaze from their workstations."

(Speaking of March Madness, you might recall Deadspin's Humorless D*ckhole Business Writer Very Upset About March Madness Pools, in which a business columnist who ran with a CG&C productivity-loss estimate, of up to $2.1 billion in lost wages, was—clearly—taken to task last March.)

So there you have it. The folks who warn of the productivity cost and their critics both say stare away. Make sure you do it right, though.