A FIFA World Cup is not just a battle on the pitch; the global economy is bound up with it. With people busy watching stars such as Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé at the World Cup that ended yesterday, there was a big drop in productivity worldwide, according to a report by the human-resources management software firm UKG.
The World Cup cost the global economy about $17 billion in lost productivity — equivalent to about two lakh crore taka in Bangladeshi currency. The biggest blow fell on the tournament’s co-host, the United States, where lost productivity alone came to about $11.7 billion, roughly 1,40,000 crore taka.
The day after the United States exited the tournament, losing to Belgium in the last-16 match on 6 July, staff attendance at the country’s offices suddenly fell by 26 percent — about 10 times higher than the day after the final of the Super Bowl, the United States’ biggest sporting event. That day, the number of client meetings, job interviews and business meetings in the corporate world fell by about 32 percent. This unusual working day was dubbed “Knockout Tuesday.” The absence was most acute on the days of the United States’ own matches.
To avoid this loss of working hours and extra traffic during the World Cup, big US and European corporations had prepared in advance. Multinationals such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and S&P allowed staff to work from home on match days. Even the day after the thrilling Argentina-Spain final, attendance at US offices was 1.87 percent lower.
A Bloomberg analysis said such workplace effects are nothing new during major global sporting or entertainment events, citing similar dips in labour markets in various countries during the Olympic Games or the release of the much-discussed films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in 2023. But the way the 2026 US World Cup affected the American economy and corporate productivity has exceeded all recent records.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report