Wednesday, March 28, 2007

American's kick ass....at wasting time at work!

According to a study done by Salary.com and AOL Find a Job site American's waste up to 2.09 hours a day costing business in this country up to 768 billion this past year. Makes you feel bad for reading this blog right? Maybe the figure would look a bit better if they included how much time employees were forced to waste because of slow co-workers or lack of work? Don't feel too bad though...even if none of those factor in they probably don't pay you enough to do what your job requires.

Here are some stats in case you are wondering....


Top Time-Wasting Activities

1. Surfing Internet (personal use) 44.7%

2. Socializing with co-workers 23.4%

3. Conducting personal business 6.8%

4. Spacing out 3.9%

5. Running errands off-premises 3.1%

Top Excuses for Time-Wasting

1. Don't have enough work to do 33.2%

2. Underpaid for amount of work I do 23.4%

3. Co-workers distract me 14.7%

4. Not enough evening or weekend time 12.0%

5. Other 16.7%

Top Time-Wasting States

1. Missouri 3.2 hrs/day

2. Indiana 2.8 hrs/day

3. Kentucky 2.8 hrs/day

4. Wisconsin 2.8 hrs/day

5. Nevada 2.7 hrs/day

Top Time-Wasting Industries

1. Insurance 2.5 hrs/day

2. Public Sector (Non-Education) 2.4 hrs/day

3. Research & Development 2.3 hrs/day

4. Education 2.2 hrs/day

5. Software & Internet 2.2 hrs/day

Here are some other interesting facts about time-wasted at work:

  • Men vs. Women: Men and women waste about the same amount of time per day (approximately 2.1 hours). This, despite the fact that most HR managers surveyed suspected that women waste more time at work than men.
  • Youngsters vs. Seniors: As the following statistics show, the older you are, the less time you waste at work.

Year of Birth

1930-1949 0.50 hrs/day

1950-1959 0.68 hrs/day

1960-1969 1.19 hrs/day

1970-1979 1.61 hrs/day

1980-1985 1.95 hrs/day

Link To Article