Half of American Workers to Shop Online at Work this Holiday Season

Of these workers, 34% will spend one hour or more shopping (up from 27% in 2010) and 16% will spend two or more hours (up from 13% in 2010).

According to the survey, half of U.S. companies monitor Internet and e-mail use of employees, which is up from 47% last year.

In terms of general Internet usage, the survey found 65% of workers spend at least some time conducting non-work related web searchers in a typical workday; 22% find themselves conducting non-work related web searchers at least five times a day. Twenty-two percent of employers have fired an employee for using the Internet for non-work related activity; 7% of human resource managers surveyed have fired an employee for holiday shopping and 54% of employers block employees from accessing certain websites.

Under the category of social media usage, 56% of workers on social networks check their profiles during their typical workday, up from 49% in 2010. Of this group, 15% spend at least one hour a day browsing. The survey found that 32% of employers prohibit employees from communication about the company on social media; 25% of employers monitor e-mails and 8% of employers report having fired someone for non-work related e-mails.

The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,696 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals and 4,384 U.S. workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and over between August 16 and September 8, 2011.