Al desko | Why a third of staff are skipping their lunchbreak

New research has revealed that over a third of office workers are now skipping more lunchbreaks than last year.

The research was commissioned by Just Eat for Business, who spoke to over 200 respondents in different industry roles, to uncover their habits around taking breaks and workplace behaviour. The findings not only revealed that 36% of workers are skipping more lunchbreaks, but that business owners and C-suite executives (44%) are the most likely to skip lunch – with one in ten of them admitting to never taking lunch breaks at all.

All employees are legally entitled to a lunchbreak – according to UK law, the minimum time employers are mandated to set aside for their employees’ lunchbreak is 20 minutes.

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However, although the pandemic has changed the workplace and normalised remote and flexible working, this flexibility does not seem to have extended to workers taking regular breaks – despite being closer to their own kitchens, fewer workers than ever are taking lunch breaks. Research last year by Tork, a global leader in workplace hygiene, found that nearly 40% of people say they never, rarely or occasionally take breaks during the working day, and 22% claimed to feel judged for taking a lunchbreak.