Cyberslacking on the Job to Cost US Economy a Quarter Trillion Dollars in 2003

By the end of the year, the US economy will lose approximately 10 billion hours in productive workplace time. These hours amount to an estimated $250 billion dollars in lost wage expenses paid to employees who choose to surf the Internet rather than work.

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 8, 2003 - By the end of the year, the US economy will lose approximately 10 billion hours in productive workplace time. These hours amount to an estimated $250 billion dollars in lost wage expenses paid to employees who choose to surf the Internet rather than work. How does such a loss go unnoticed and uncorrected? Much like a pinhole in a rubber tire, the hours wasted are like a slow leak in the economy, since only one hour of daily cyberslacking is needed for Internet-enabled workers to amass such enormous annual productivity losses.

The quarter trillion dollar hole in the economy was estimated by Internet Policy Consulting LLC (IPC), a New York City based management consulting firm. Using publicly available data from Computerworld, Nielsen/Net Ratings, comSource Media Metrix, UCLA and their own estimates, IPC principals were able to validate their estimates of the multi-billion dollar hole in the economy using several different methodologies.

Workplace use and abuse of the Internet has been highlighted in the media several times in the past two months. In a move toward greater security, several top securities firms blocked employee access to popular free e-mail providers. Also, the virus attacks suffered in the workplace caused by Sobig.F most likely started after the malicious code was downloaded from a porn Usenet group. Some estimates place the cost of lost productivity, wasted hours, and lost sales caused by Sobig.F from $500 million to more than $1 billion.

IPC principals feel that senior managers in business and government will come to recognize employee Internet access as both an asset and liability to the workplace. After all, the 10 billion lost work hours that they derived is the equivalent to 5 million office workers being paid to web surf for an entire year. IPC principals predict that employee Internet management issues will grow in complexity and cost in the near future. By the end of 2004, they predict the quarter trillion dollar productivity loss will grow by as much as 15% or $37.5 billion, based on current trends.
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