The cost of workplace conflict

Our good friends across the pond just released a report showing that the

"average British employee is spending more than two hours a week dealing with conflict. This adds up to the loss of more than 370 million working days a year, costing UK employers more than 24 billion pounds."

While heavy caseloads and stress were responsible for about one-third of workplace conflict, personality clashes and warring egos were responsible for almost half of workplace conflict.

Do you think that workplace conflict will increase in these economic times? With speculation (or not) of layoffs, lack of credit, financial institutions failing, and severe fluctuations in the stock market, will we see higher incidents of workplace conflict?