ALMOST a third of UK workers – 14.6 million people – admit to costing their company money through a lack of basic maths and English skills.

A study of five economic sectors – administration, retail, financial, IT and manual – has shown employees are making simple errors such as inaccurate estimates, putting the decimal point in the wrong place or a spelling or grammatical error.

Two-thirds of people, in the study completed by Learndirect, said they rely on a spellchecker at work and one in five admitted to not knowing the difference between words such as ‘there’ and ‘their’.

Judi James, workplace expert at Learndirect, said: ‘While poor basic skills in the workplace can cost businesses money, there is also an emotional cost to consider.

‘Around a third of people said they feel embarrassed, panicked or afraid when their basic skills let them down.

‘Put on the spot, they believe they are not up to the job and this can often lead to a loss of confidence, lack of motivation and even depression.’