The amount of time smokers get off work just with cigarette breaks revealed – it’s more than you think

SMOKERS gain an extra week off work every year by taking cigarette breaks, a poll reveals.

More than half leave their desks several times a day for a cigarette or to vape.

Some take as much as 20 minutes out of their days but typically it is up to ten.

Even at the lower rate, that amounts to 50 minutes a week or nearly 40 hours a year — the equivalent of at least a week’s extra holiday.

Despite government and NHS campaigns, 6.6 million people in Britain are smokers.

And while putting their health at risk, they are also likely to be less productive at work, the poll warns.

The biggest slackers are GenZ workers — those born after the mid-1990s — followed by older baby boomer colleagues born between 1946 and 1964.

Millennials — those born in the 1980s and early 1990s — took the least cigarette breaks.

Belfast and Southampton were the cities with the worst smoking break skivers, according to the survey for nicotine pouch and vape brand Haypp UK.

Least likely to duck out of the office for a puff were those living in Edinburgh and Norwich.

Haypp’s Markus Lindblad said: “Smoking laws have changed a lot and companies have different rules when it comes to leaving work to smoke, with some being stricter than others.

“But a large proportion of smokers are still gaining extra time away from work to enjoy a cigarette, with some wasting 20 minutes or more every day.”