A human resources company has warned that staff overusing social networking sites could be costing South Coast businesses tens of thousands of pounds.

Jaluch, from Ringwood, claims it's constantly hearing from companies who are concerned about staff overuse of the web sites, which is reducing productivity.

In one instance an employee was logged onto Facebook for all but half an hour of their working week.

The firm estimates that for a company employing 100 or more people, staff logging onto social networking sites for just 30 minutes per day could amount to tens of thousands of pounds of lost time per year.