Concerns have been expressed today by the United Kingdom’s biggest employers that a house price crash will lead to a deepening of the productivity crisis facing the UK because people may stop work during lunch hours.

“It will be worse than Brexit.” Mr Soil Toil, a rep for firms dealing in financial services waste disposal, stated earlier today.

“Can you imagine if people stopped working for long enough to leave their workplaces? To go and sit on a park bench long enough to eat a sandwich? It’s the end of British competitiveness as we know it.”

Working through lunch, while trying not to drop a chicken and salad sandwich from Boots all over a keyboard, has become increasingly popular in the UK in recent decades.

It has only increased in appeal as the variety of lunches available has grown in number.
Now busy workers are also able to try and avoid hummus, falafel and any number of a variety of exotic foods, from getting in between the keys at their work station.

“Hot desking really livened things up too.” Mr Toil added. “Now you can see what your colleagues ate for lunch the day before. It keeps people interested.”

The potential loss of productivity to the United Kingdom’s few remaining industries could be devastating if people stopped for one hour each day.

“The worst case scenario is a lot of people leaving the office alone.” Mr Toil continued.

“Imagine if employees purposefully isolate themselves from their colleagues for lunch hours? Can you imagine what will happen if they aren’t talking about work for sixty minutes?”

But how does the risk of a house price crash play into this?

“It’s immense. It’s like a tsunami. British business has managed to squeeze masses of extra hours out of people every working day by virtue of runaway house prices.

It’s saved countless billions that would otherwise have had to be spent on training staff to make them more productive.

You simply can not afford to stop working through lunch if you’ve a mortgage that terrifies you and keeps you awake at night. It’s the only thing giving us an edge. First time buyers are a particular risk.”