Objectives Lost productivity arises in the economy when a person is unable to work, and is
an important component of a societal perspective in economic evaluations. The friction cost
approach (FCA) is one way to value lost productivity, and considers the time taken to replace
an employee, known as the friction period (FP). However, no estimates of the FP and
associated costs are available for Australia, limiting local relevance of FCA estimates. The
objective was to identify, for the first time, the time and costs of replacing an employee in …