Will GTA 6 cost the US $1 billion in sick days? Where that viral number actually comes from

The claim that 1.5 million Americans will skip work on November 19, costing the economy $1 billion, is back in the headlines. We traced it: a July 2025 radio interview, a headcount with no study behind it, and math that doesn't add up. In Brazil, the next day is a national holiday.

One and a half million Americans calling their boss with a convincing cough on the morning of November 19. A 2% dip in productivity. Roughly $1 billion lost from the US economy in a single day. The figure resurfaced this week — VGTimes ran it on October 21 — and it's well on its way to becoming accepted "fact" before launch.

The trouble is that once you pull the thread, very little of it holds up as a forecast.

Who actually said what

It starts with an interview Spanish radio station Cadena SER did with economist José García Montalvo, a professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. The key detail: the interview dates from July 28, 2025, more than a year ago, back when GTA 6 had a different release date. VGTimes doesn't date the conversation; IBTimes UK and Hypebeast do, in pieces that pieced the story together in September 2026.

According to IBTimes UK, what Montalvo said was more modest than the headline:

men aged 18 to 30 would be the group most likely to skip work;
so would remote tech workers, since supervision is looser;
and, looking back, video games account for around half of the rise in young people's leisure time and between 1.5% and 2% of the decline in hours worked.

That last figure is the one that gets twisted the most. IBTimes itself stresses that it describes a long-run historical trend, not a launch-day prediction — and it does not mean 1.5% or 2% of American workers will be absent on November 19.

The 1.5 million isn't his

The most-shared number in the whole story isn't in the interview. IBTimes UK says Cadena SER's report gives no headcount at all, that the 1.5 million came later from calculations meant to "explain" the $1 billion, and that it shouldn't be attributed to Montalvo. Hypebeast agrees: the figure "remains unverified" and "should not be read as a confirmed count of workers who have booked leave."

The $1 billion itself was attributed by Cadena SER to an absenteeism estimate for the US — with no published study behind it, per IBTimes. Even VGTimes, which revived the story, says to take the numbers "with a grain of salt" and calls the 1.5 million an "unverified scenario."

The math doesn't work

One of the IBTimes UK reports lists the ingredients behind the billion: 1.5 million absent workers and average output of about $70,000 per US worker per year. It doesn't show the arithmetic, though.

So we did it ourselves, roughly: $70,000 over about 250 working days is around $280 per worker per day. Multiply that by 1.5 million absences and you get roughly $420 million — less than half of the advertised billion. To hit $1 billion with those inputs you'd need something like 3.6 million people staying home. The gap might come from an assumption the reports don't spell out (lower output from people who do show up, for instance), but none of the sources we read explains it.

So nobody's calling in sick?

Of course people will. It just can't be measured that precisely. The concrete signs the coverage has gathered are of a different kind:

Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two's CEO, joked at a Las Vegas conference on April 28, 2026: "I think a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19," as quoted by IBTimes UK. It was a quip, with no number attached;
the Wall Street Journal found people saving up paid leave to play, including 36-year-old software engineer Bud Burruss, who plans to take five days off around launch;
Burger Motorsports, a California parts retailer, posted a public notice that shipping and support would slow down from November 19 because several staff had booked time off.

Then there's the GTA V precedent from 2013: according to IBTimes UK, reports at the time found up to 6% of 18- to 35-year-old workers in Los Angeles and New York took launch day off. The article doesn't name the original survey, so treat it as a ballpark, not a hard figure.

In Australia, the topic even reached the workplace regulator, which explained which kinds of leave do — and don't — cover playing on launch day. We covered that here.

Brazil gets lucky

Brazil's calendar is kind to players. GTA 6 launches on Thursday, November 19, and Friday, November 20, is the National Day of Zumbi and Black Consciousness — a national holiday created by Law 14,759. For anyone on a Monday-to-Friday schedule, that means a three-day weekend right after launch.

Thursday is still a regular workday, though. As Brazilian outlet O Povo puts it, taking the 19th off depends on an agreement with your employer — time off, comp time or an hours bank — and isn't automatic. Essential services, shops and restaurants can open on the holiday, and anyone working on the 20th is entitled to the usual compensation.

If you're going digital, you can get everything ready in advance: pre-loading starts on November 12. It's also worth checking how the time-zone-staggered launch works before planning a late night.

Our take: Brazilian players won't need a doctor's note to spend the weekend in Leonida. Skipping Thursday is another matter — one for your boss, not us.

What it would take to actually know

A reliable absence figure would have to come from post-launch data: employer surveys, sick-leave records, HR platform numbers. None of that exists before November 19, and none of the reports we read cites a published national study on the subject. Until then, the "$1 billion" is a 2025 radio estimate that took on a life of its own.