Survey: Workers’ ‘Lunch hour’ dropping to below 30 minutes

A traditional lunch hour is increasingly reserved for fewer U.S. workers. A new workplace survey finds almost half of office workers take 30 minutes or less for their lunch break.

Staffing company OfficeTeam, a division of Robert Half International, says 32 percent of respondents take a lunch break of 21 to 30 minutes and 16 percent take 20 minutes or less. For 9 percent, a typical lunch break is less than 10 minutes.

The survey indicates lunch breaks aren’t just for eating, with 42 percent of respondents saying they also use the time to socialize with co-workers. Personal web surfing and catching up on emails are also common uses of lunch break time, as is running errands.

Only one percent of those surveyed say they do nothing but eat on their lunch break.

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