Businesses are bracing for a sudden wave of mid-week sickies as staff scramble to lock in time off work for the long-awaited launch of Grand Theft Auto 6.
Fresh data from employment platform Employment Hero which tracked 870,275 Australian workers has uncovered a 29 per cent surge in annual leave bookings for next Thursday, November 19, compared with the same time last year.
Men aged 18 to 44 are overwhelmingly driving the workplace exodus, with leave requests among the demographic skyrocketing by 84 per cent, despite accounting for less than a third of the tracked workforce.
Thirteen years in the making, Grand Theft Auto 6 is tipped to be the biggest video game launch of the year, if not the decade.
Concerns over the impending workforce disruption, and the temptation for gamers to chuck a sudden sickie, have grown so serious that the Fair Work Ombudsman issued its own social media warning to employees.
“Here’s a gentle reminder to get your leave request in sooner rather than later,” the watchdog posted to Instagram.
Employment Hero global insights lead Lisa Cowie said it did not take much detective work to figure out why so many workers were clearing their calendars for a random weekday in mid-November.
“While we can conclusively point to a reason for this significant spike, when you have an event that has mass appeal amongst this demographic – such as the launch of Grand Theft Auto V1 – inferences can be made as to which factors could be driving the increase,“ Ms Cowie said.
“The good news for employers is that people are planning ahead and booking leave weeks in advance, giving managers time to arrange any required cover for what seems to be a big day of gaming.”
According to Employment Hero’s figures as at November 10, 0.53 per cent of all tracked employees had already locked in advance leave for launch day, up from 0.41 per cent on November 20 last year.
Within the younger male cohort, the proportion of workers with approved leave jumped from 0.37 per cent last year to 0.69 per cent for 2026.
When Grand Theft Auto 5 hit shelves in 2013, the blockbuster title raked in more than $800 million on its opening day before surpassing $1 billion by day three.
The game has since sold more than 235 million copies, cementing its place as the second best-selling video game of all time behind Minecraft and Tetris.
Bosses have been warned that they are likely in for a late rush of leave bookings over the next few days.
