MILLIONS of home workers will skive off for an hour or two to shop online tomorrow — Black Friday.
Staff surfing for bargains on the web will push cyber spending to a record £1.93billion — up £784million on last year, according to the Centre for Retail Research.
Many will also pop out in work time to fetch click and collect orders, analysts say.
But lost working hours will cost the economy about £400million, figures suggest.
Dean Hunter of HR consultancy Hunter Adams said: “Some employees will waste working hours shopping online.
“Lost working time is a huge cost to the economy.”
“But for less-motivated employees, working at home is a whole new annual leave allocation.”
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research, said: “A lot of people are working from home and some will spend work time checking prices and making purchases on Black Friday.
“The cost to the economy adds up, even for an hour.
“Spending looks like being more spread out through the day this year.
“Some employers will have systems in place on work laptops to see if people are actually working at home. And some workers may pop out to click and collect.”
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