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Online poll shows people skip work to watch Games

A majority of office workers in the country are keeping a close eye on the Beijing Olympics, with some even changing their work schedules or skipping work altogether to watch the events on TV, a local online poll showed on Monday.

Seventy-three percent of local office workers surveyed between Aug. 8 and last Friday by the 1111 Job Bank, an online human resource agency, said they were “very interested” in or paying close attention to the Olympics, the poll indicated.

The poll showed that 16.53 percent of the 73 percent said they changed their work schedules to watch the Games.

In the same category, 46.07 percent said that they had changed their work time or shifts; 16.29 percent took days off; 15.73 percent arrived late for work; 14.04 percent left work early; 8.43 percent skipped work altogether.

AFFECTING WORK

The poll showed that 22.33 percent said they peeked at the competitions or scores while working; 14.53 percent said they were eager to get off work; while 11.93 percent said they often discussed the competitions, which affected their productivity.

The poll showed that 25.16 percent of the respondents interested in the Olympics said their companies had adopted open policies, such as allowing employees to watch events on TV at company restaurants or in the office, informing employees as results come in, letting employees get off work early to watch important competitions, or offering leave.

The top five popular sports among local office workers, who were allowed to make multiple choices, were baseball (76.51 percent), taekwondo (36.12 percent), tennis (22.93 percent), basketball (21.73 percent) and water sports (19.87 percent), the poll indicated.

The poll had 1,115 valid samples, with a margin of error of 2.9 percent and a 95 percent level of confidence.
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