The biggest productivity killers in the American workplace are centered around the mobile devices that people carry around in their pockets and purses, according to a survey of both employers and employees by CareerBuilder.

Both workers and their bosses were short on compliments in their assessments of the amount of labor that actually gets performed each day in U.S. offices, CBS MoneyWatch reported.

“It's amazing that American workers actually get as much done as they do. If you listen to the complaints of bosses, and the confessions of their employees, it sounds like the U.S. workforce is made up of a bunch of slackers texting and gossiping like bored teenagers,” CBS said.

Half of employers in the CareerBuilder survey said that cell phone use, including texting, was the top impediment to productivity, and 24 percent of workers admitted they spend at least one hour daily on personal calls, e-mails and text messages.

The top spoilers of productivity, according to the employers, were: phone use and texting, 50 percent; gossip, 42 percent; surfing the Internet, 39 percent; social media, 38 percent; snack or smoke breaks, 27 percent; meetings, 23 percent; e-mail, 23 percent.

CBS said the survey does not show the entire picture of the American workplace. It noted Americans actually work more than citizens of many other countries, even as their wages have sagged in real terms.

Between 2007 and 2012, wages for the lowest-paid 70 percent of U.S. workers declined, but their productivity grew by 7.7 percent, the Economic Policy Institute said.

Also, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimates the average American works about 1,700 hours a year. That's much higher than in France, where a worker toils an average of 1,475 hours, or in Germany, where the average worker puts in 1,406 hours.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. labor productivity experienced its largest decline in six years in the first quarter of the year, falling a steeper-than-expected 3.2 percent.

The federal agency blamed lower output, which it said was caused by severe winter storms and some of the coldest temperatures on record.


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