{"id":278907,"date":"2018-10-28T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=278907"},"modified":"2018-10-26T12:51:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T10:51:48","slug":"the-amount-of-free-work-you-do-by-not-taking-a-lunch-break-over-your-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/278907\/the-amount-of-free-work-you-do-by-not-taking-a-lunch-break-over-your-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"The amount of ‘free work’ you do by not taking a lunch break over your lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jobs website CareerJunction<\/a> <\/strong>has released a new report focusing on the cost of taking a lunch break in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The report is based on a survey of 3,000 South Africans across a number of job sectors.<\/p>\n

More than half (55%) of respondents said they are given a 60-minute lunch break.<\/p>\n

By comparison, one in three South Africans are allowed a 30-minute lunch break, while 7% are allowed a 40-minute break.<\/p>\n

According to the study, two-thirds of South Africans don\u2019t use their full lunch breaks. This is more than in the UK, where a similar survey revealed an average of 44% of UK workers\u00a0don\u2019t use their full lunch breaks.<\/p>\n

Two thirds (67%) of the local respondents said that they eat at their desks while working. In addition, 71% said they browse the internet if not eating during their lunch breaks.<\/p>\n

20% of workers said that they skip their lunch breaks altogether and a further 35% said they never leave their desks until after their workday ends – except to use the bathroom.<\/p>\n

The cost<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Considering South Africa’s current economic climate and high unemployment rate, one cannot help but wonder if job security plays a key role in the work culture of South Africans,” CareerJunction said.<\/p>\n

“While the fight for employment is an obvious contributor, money, or the lack thereof, also seems to play a part. Even though only 13% of respondents admitted that they can\u2019t afford to take lunch every day, it turns out that, although 100% of respondents have access to lunch amenities within a 10-minute walk from their offices, less than half use these, and only on occasion.<\/p>\n

“Instead, nearly 60% bring their own lunch from home and 45% spend less than R100 per week on lunch.”<\/p>\n

Using the above data, CareerJunction extrapolated that the average South African works a total of 2.2 years overtime during their lifetime due to unused lunch breaks (assuming that a full-time work life is from 18 to 65 years old, and that there are 260 working days in a year).<\/p>\n

That amounts to R512,465 worth of free work and ‘unnecessary’ time spent at their desks instead of having a break.<\/p>\n

This figure is based on StatsSA average monthly earnings at R13,621 a month.<\/p>\n

What the law says<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under section 14 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), workers must have a meal break of 60 minutes after five hours\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

However, a written agreement (between the employer and employee) may reduce meal intervals to 30 minutes and\/or eliminate meal intervals for workers who work less than six hours a day.<\/p>\n

Provision is also made that an employee may be required to work during his meal break – but only on work that cannot be left unattended or cannot be done by another employee.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0What do the best-before, sell-by and use-by dates on food products really mean<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jobs website CareerJunction has released a new report focusing on lunch breaks in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":112233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1438,26],"class_list":["post-278907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-careerjunction","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278907"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280311,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278907\/revisions\/280311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}