UK Businesses Set to Lose Pounds Sterling 15 Billion as Workers Turn to the Internet to Find the Best Summer Holiday

LEEDS, UNITED KINGDOM, Jun 24 (MARKET WIRE) --
Editor's Note: There is a photo associated with this press release.

A third of all UK workers waste at least 20 per cent of the working day
surfing the web for cheap holiday deals or catching up with friends over
e-mail, according to a national survey of office workers from Internet
security specialists SmoothWall. This time wasting is estimated to cost
UK companies approximately Pounds Sterling 15 billion per year.

With the holiday season about to start and schools ready to break up,
employers may find that staff are now at their least productive; a
worrying thought as many companies fight to stay in the black.
Traditionally, British workers have forfeited nearly Pounds Sterling 200
million of holidays by not using all their annual allowance.(i) According
to the Association of British Travel Agents, 2009 could see this trend
broken as only 7% of workers seem prepared to forego their summer
holidays this year. Many are looking to escape the credit crunch for a
few weeks through cheap online deals.

Research conducted in 2008 indicated that time wasting at work was
already rising, with UK workers spending over an hour and a half surfing
the web for personal reasons; costing the economy Pounds Sterling 10.6
billion a year.(ii) The 50 per cent hike indicated in the survey from
SmoothWall is a worrying trend for UK employers. Both men and women were
found to be as equally as guilty of cyber skiving with surfing the web
cited as the most popular non-work activity (44%) followed by emailing
friends (21%) and booking holidays online (13%).

In response to the results, Tom Newton, Product Manager at SmoothWall
said: "People have less money so it makes sense that they are going to
spend more time researching their summer holidays this year. With so many
people receiving pay freezes or cuts there is feeling with workers that
spending half an hour here-and-there is regarded as fair game".

"We would advise employers not to implement strict surfing bans, as they
can cause more problems than they solve. A more sensible approach is to
monitor web use - particularly search engine terms, so the serial
cyberskivers can be separated out from other more responsible users and
their access privileges set accordingly. Employers with US-centric
filtering products should however check that the important search terms
are covered. Most Americans go on 'vacations' and so UK-specific terms
like 'holidays' often get missed" said Newton.

For additional information, please visit:
www.smoothwall.net/news/newsitem.php?id=1669

About SmoothWall

The SmoothWall family of Internet security solutions helps enterprises
and schools to prevent misuse, block objectionable content and protect
against web related threats. Delivered and supported via a global network
of partners in over 60 countries, SmoothWall's commercial and open source
solutions safeguard more than a million networks worldwide.

(i) The Times newspaper

(ii) CBI

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Contacts:
Noiseworks
James Delves
+44 (0) 1628 628 080
Jamesd@noiseworks.com
www.noiseworks.com

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