On average, the working day was found to be 6 hours and 42 minutes. Non-work related activities took up two hours and eight minutes. Employers paying for a full day's work are usually getting no more than four and a half hours from employees.
Surfing the Internet takes up around 40 minutes a day. The most active workplace web users are self-employed people, entrepreneurs, and people in management positions.
Following the Internet, the next most popular ways of avoiding work are rest and relaxation, and chatting with fellow employees. Nine out of ten of those surveyed said that they did not take smoking breaks at all. Those who do smoke during working hours put 10-20 minutes a day into puffing.
Different kinds of jobs
Tarja Hakola, a specialist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, says that unauthorized breaks say something about wandering attention. If a person is unable to focus, he or she seeks something else to fill the time.
"It's known that if official working time is six hours, an employee gets as much done as in eight hours. Shorter working times are more efficient, but old traditions are still observed," points out Hakola.
She also points out that there is a lot of variation among jobs. For example, a surgeon may operate efficiently for 12 hours straight, but in monotonous and physically demanding jobs regular breaks are essential.
Taloustutkimus interviewed over a thousand Finns for the Sunnuntaisuomalainen-commissioned survey.