NORTHERN workers are suffering because of their time being wasted in the office, a survey has revealed.

The survey, by Learndirect, shows that UK office staff waste an average of two hours and 45 minutes a day, costing employers £158bn a year.

Workers in Newcastle are losing more time than average, wasting two hours 54 minutes a day, although those in Yorkshire lost less, wasting two hours and ten minutes.

In both areas, time spent chasing colleagues for overdue information was given as being the biggest waste.

Sitting in meetings came second among Newcastle workers, while those in Yorkshire complained of having to sift through trivia on the Internet to access information.

Other time-wasting activities included having to master computers, colleagues arriving late for meetings, pointless e-mails, and searching through filing systems to locate documents.

Nine out of ten people polled were angry or frustrated by time-wasting in the workplace.