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The study, conducted by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), claims workers spend 4.4% of their average work day - or 10 days a year - wasting time on social networking, shopping and other personal sites.

The figure excludes lunch hours, leading the CBI to make the rather crude calculation that personal surfing is costing British business £10.6bn each year, based on the salary paid to the skiving surfers.

However, the CBI says employers would be foolish

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to launch an immediate crackdown on employees' personal surfing. "While an hour-and-a-half a week may sound like a lot, it is not always wasted time," says CBI deputy director general, John Cridland. "Productivity and morale can increase when firms trust staff to use the web sensibly to catch up with friends on Facebook, pay household bills, or search for a cheap flight."

"Nobody wants to behave like Big Brother and there is no epidemic of misuse, but there needs to be a bit of give-and-take from all parties," Cridland adds. "Employers need to decide for themselves what level of non-work surfing is acceptable and then set out clear boundaries."

There are cases where employers have to draw the line, says the CBI. Such as the employee of an insurance company who was sacked for spending entire working days playing fantasy role-playing games online, or the local government authority who issued a P45 to the member of staff running an Ebay shop from work, even going so far as to use the authority's email address as a point of contact with buyers.