Workers make 15,000 calls to sex and chat lines every hour, costing UK business millions of pounds a year, research revealed.
A total of 35 million calls were made to premium-rate phone lines from workers' desks last year, a report showed.
The calls, to sex, chat and TV vote lines, cost up to £1.50 a minute and added up to £25 million, according to the research by telecoms giant BT.
Financial advisers, car dealers and hotel workers topped the list of employees most likely to call sex and chat lines when they should be working, said the report.
Workers in London, Birmingham, Chelmsford and Leicester were most likely to call the lines, while those in Norwich, Wrexham, Milton Keynes and Sheffield were least likely.
BT said firms should exercise more control over the use of phones in company time.
Craig Rowland, managing director of BT Business said: "For many companies, the amount of premium rate calls can cause an unexpected shock when the phone bill arrives."
Monday July 21, 2003
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