A new report out today by Nucleus Research confirms what many of us early morning spam email filterers have been long wondering: our productivity is indeed going down substantially as a result of having to sift through so many spam emails just to begin our day.

 

According to the report, "Spam: The Repeat Offender," users are spending 16 seconds to identify whether or not messages are spam- as some messages have gotten so good users are fooled into thinking it’s a message from a coworker. Along with that, the time spent to delete those which are spam email has translated into an annual cost of $70 billion for all US businesses.

 

In all the attempts made by businesses today to boost their employee productivity, one thing that’s hindering this greatly is happening right in the very email inboxes employees must utilize to remain productive.

 

Nucleus also surveyed 849 email users in March 2007 together with KnowlegeSotrm and found that "two out of every three email messages received are spam," a news release noted.

 

Their findings also uncovered that:

 

-90 Percent of emails reaching business users are spam

 

-The average user receives 21 spam messages in their inbox daily

 

-Employees are just as upset about the spamming as their employers.

 

-Respondents also identified the most common types of spam as adult oriented solicitations, financial lending solicitations and retail offers.

 

Because spam has grown to the degree of an epidemic that is costing US businesses $712 per employee each year in lost worker productivity, this has forced many businesses to look beyond filtering technology to solve the spam problem.  

 

"Spam is no longer just a technology problem- it’s a problem that we should be attacking with more than just technology," said Rebecca Wettemann, VP of Research, and Nuceleus Research in a statement to the press.

 

Jeff Ramminger, executive vice president, KnowledgeStorm also added, "Almost 20 percent of respondents believe jail time is an appropriate punishment for serial spammers. While that’s probably not a realistic outcome, it indicates that frustration with spam has reached a boiling point."