British business is losing more than£50million a year because of employees skipping off work on Friday afternoons.

Long lunches, a meeting out of the office but near the employee’s home and a doctor's appointment are the top three excuses for workers who are looking to get their weekend going a few hours earlier.

The “Friday Feeling” has been identified by leading personnel software company Employersafe, which says the trend is costing industry almost £1million-a-week. Research by the company has also uncovered the top 10 Friday excuses.

And staff taking liberties on a Friday is adding to Britain’s £13billion workplace absenteeism crisis.

The findings are reinforced by research by the AA which shows that the Friday rush hour now starts around noon.

Pam Rogerson, head of personnel at Employersafe, said: “Many businesses pretty much grind to a halt due to workers suffering from the Friday Feeling.

“People tend to schedule business lunches on a Friday afternoon, which inevitably over-run and mean they can not return to the office.

“It is amazing how often these days you can send an email or make a phone call on a Friday and not get any response until Monday morning.

“Our evidence suggests that more and more workers are seeing Friday afternoon as an unofficial holiday.

“We have estimated that this is costing British business just over £50million a year which all goes to form part of the overall £13billion cost of workplace absenteeism.

“A growing number of companies have reached the end of their tether and are using sophisticated personnel software to help them track whether staff regularly miss certain days or have a habit of not being around on Friday afternoons!”

Employersafe is helping bosses counteract the Friday Feeling with a computer programme that tracks patterns in workers’ absence.

And if managers decide they want to take disciplinary action against serial Friday afternoon slackers then the software can also guide them through the legal process.