Thirty percent of hiring managers have sacked employees for turning up late, and the reasons late arrivers give are not washing with hard-pressed employers.

One-in-ten workers admits to being late at least once a month, and 14 per cent are late once a week or more. The national survey was conducted online in January 2014 and included a representative sample of 1,000 employees across industries and company sizes. That's according to a new CareerBuilder.co.uk study. “Employers understand that from time to time circumstances will arise that are out of a worker’s control and unfortunately cause them to arrive at work late,” says Scott Helmes, Managing Director of CareerBuilder UK. “It escalates into a problem when the behaviour becomes repetitive, causing employers to take disciplinary action. Three in ten hiring managers reported that they had to fire someone for being late.”

Reasons for being late range from factors in a worker’s control to those that are not. When asked what primarily makes you late to work workers said: Traffic – 41 percent; Lack of Sleep – 25 percent; Public Transportation – 22 percent; Weather – 13 percent; Getting Children to School – seven percent; Wardrobe Issues – five percent; Internet Use – three percent; Pets – three percent.