Growing number of workers feel they have too many meetings to take a lunch break

Lunchtime arrives and your stomach starts to grumble. It’s halfway through the work day, and probably the perfect time to take a lunch break to carry you through the rest of the day.

According to WorkLife: “That’s the dream scenario – one that unfortunately isn’t happening for most workers. Instead, they’re either eating lunch while working, or skipping it entirely. In fact, workers today are 40% more likely to skip lunch than they were just one year ago and nearly half of the workforce (48%) skip lunch at least once a week, according to corporate. catering company ezCater’s annual lunch report, which surveyed over 5,000 workers across the U.S. from all types of workplaces to better understand their relationship with food at work”

“Generation Z workers have become associated with terms and trends like “bare minimum Mondays” and “quiet quitting.” Like all sweeping generalizations this has led to an oversimplified view of how an entire generation works: that they all slack off at work. However, this report found that the lunch crunch is strongest for Gen Z, in part because this cohort is worried about such stereotypes. They’re twice as likely to worry that their bosses will judge them for taking a lunch break. That leads to them being the most likely to neglect meals at work, with 70% saying they skip lunch once a week.”

“One in 5 workers surveyed feel that they have too many meetings to take a lunch break, which may contribute to the trend of “meeting and eating” on video calls. Despite workers feeling that eating on an external (83%) or internal (74%) video call is bad etiquette, 3 in 10 workers do it anyway.”

More here.