Romance blooms at the office, U.S. survey says

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Forty percent of U.S. workers have dated an office colleague, with 31 percent of them going on to marriage, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Ten percent work with someone they would like to date and 18 percent have dated a co-worker twice or more at some time in their careers, the office romance survey for online job website CareerBuilder.com showed.

Those eyeing a co-worker was skewed between the sexes, with 14 percent of men but just 5 percent of women saying they would like to date a colleague.

Of those who dated a co-worker in the last year, a third said it was someone with a more senior position in the company. Of those, 42 percent have dated their boss, said.

Nearly three-quarters said they did not have to keep their romance a secret but 7 percent said they had left a job due to an office romance.

The survey of 8,038 full-time adult employees was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between November 12 and December 1, 2008.

The overall results have a sampling error of plus or minus 1.09 percentage points, it said. CareerBuilder.com is owned by Gannett Co, Tribune Co, The McClatchy Co and Microsoft Corp.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by John O'Callaghan)