An Accountemps survey shows that nearly four out of five professionals say they are not planning to shop online while at work.  Those who say they will be hunting for holiday bargains during business hours plan to shop online an average of 1.9 hours a week, down from 2.7 hours when the same question was asked in 2007.  Phil Willingham is with Accountemps.

"Many companies have tightened their policies with regards to Internet access.  Many of them have monitoring triggers set up to where they can actually you know, view and see, you know, the network, so they've documented or written out their company policies that this would be a violation of company policy to be online shopping.  So certainly employees are more aware of that.  Leaner departments just mean there's more workloads on people right now, so when they're at work, they're really focused on work."

Willingham says current economic times might be encouraging office workers to maintain their job focus, but there are other reasons why shopping online from work may be less pervasive.

"I'd say the top reason, actually, is when you think about the mobile Internet, people actually have more access today than they've had in years past.  So you think about Blackberry and iPhone we're used to — maybe you needed or a desk and hardline via home or at work — now you could use your handheld while you're on break or at lunch, to be able to access those things." 

Ed Mayberry, KUHF-Houston Public Radio News.