More than 5 million UK workers put in a total of 2 billion unpaid hours in 2018

The average person doing unpaid overtime has worked the year so far for free

Employers must not steal their workers’ time, TUC warns

UK companies claimed £32.7 billion of free labour last year because of workers’ doing unpaid overtime, according to new analysis of official statistics published today (Friday) by the TUC.

More than 5 million people put in an average of 7.5 hours a week in unpaid overtime during 2018. On average, that’s equivalent to having £6,532 taken out of individual pay packets.

Today is the TUC’s 15th annual Work Your Proper Hours Day, marking the fact that the average person doing unpaid overtime has effectively worked the year so far for free.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“It’s not okay for bosses to steal their workers’ time.

“Lots of us are willing to put in a few extra hours when it’s needed, but too many employers are taking advantage.

“Overworking staff hurts productivity, leaves workers’ stressed and exhausted and eats into time that should be spent with family and friends.

“Bosses who do steal people’s time should face consequences. So we’re calling for new rights to ensure that employers who break the rules on working time can be brought to employment tribunals.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

To mark Work Your Proper Hours Day, the TUC is encouraging workers to take a proper lunch break and leave on time. Employers should adopt good practice and take steps to manage down unpaid overtime hours

Government should actively enforce statutory paid annual leave, rest breaks and the right not to work more than 48 hours a week on average. These rights should be enforceable both by complaint to a government enforcement agency and by taking a case to Employment Tribunal. This dual-channel system is already used to enforce the national minimum wage (NMW), which is a flagship policy. At the moment the system doesn’t work. For example, local authorities have sole responsibility for enforcing the 48 hour week in shops and offices, but they can do nothing because they have no resources for this role.

Government should target low-paid salary work for national minimum wage enforcement. Where employers require salaried staff to work extra hours, this time counts towards the NMW calculation.

Key findings

Gender: The TUC study reveals that men work just over a billion unpaid overtime hours a year, (1,048 million hours) compared to 0.9 billion hours for women (908 million hours). More than 1 in 6 (18.0%) men work unpaid overtime, averaging 8.0 hours per week. A similar percentage of women (18.4%) also put in unpaid hours. Even though many women work part-time the average for those undertaking unpaid overtime is 7.0 hours a week.

Public sector: 1 in 4 public sector employees (25.3%) worked unpaid overtime, compared to around 1 in 6 employees in the private sector (15.8%) Public sector workers contributed £12.0 billion of unpaid overtime last year. Public sector employees make up just a quarter (25.2%) of total employees but produce more than a third (35.3%) of all unpaid overtime.

Occupations: teachers and educational professionals work the most unpaid hours on average each week (12.1 hours). Chief executives are close behind (11.4 hours per week), followed by legal professionals (10.2 hours), hospitality and catering managers (9.7 hours), functional managers such as financial, marketing, and personnel managers (9.2 hours) and retail, leisure financial institution and production managers (all 8.9 Hours).

Region London relies most on free work, with almost 1 in 4 workers (24.4%) doing unpaid overtime, (compared to the national average of fewer than one in five (18.2%). Employees in London worked more than a third of a billion free hours (385 million) last year. The South East is next, with 20.3% working unpaid overtime, while 19.9% in the South West and 18.6% in the Eastern Region are working free hours. However, the 460,000 unpaid overtime workers in the North West have edged ahead when it comes to most unpaid hours each (8.0 hours per week, compared to the national average of 7.5 hours). London is close behind, with unpaid overtime workers averaging 7.8 free hours per week, while unpaid overtime workers in Wales and the West Midlands both average 7.6 free hours a week.

Table 1 – Unpaid overtime by region and value

Nation / region Number working unpaid overtime Proportion working unpaid overtime Average weekly hours of unpaid overtime Average gross hourly pay Total value per week (£000s) Total value per year (£m) Annual value per worker North East 147,000 14.0% 7.3 £14.83 15,971 830 £5,665 North West 460,000 15.3% 8.0 £15.37 56,530 2,940 £6,387 Yorks and Humber 402,000 18.0% 7.3 £14.92 44,006 2,288 £5,692 East Midlands 343,000 17.5% 7.5 £14.69 36,660 1,906 £5,557 West Midlands 418,000 17.6% 7.6 £15.50 49,142 2,555 £6,112 Eastern 483,000 18.6% 7.3 £16.00 56,604 2,943 £6,097 London 949,000 24.4% 7.8 £22.49 165,585 8,611 £9,077 South East 785,000 20.5% 7.3 £17.11 97,752 5,083 £6,497 South West 454,000 19.9% 7.0 £15.28 48,743 2,535 £5,587 Wales 164,000 12.9% 7.6 £14.40 18,021 937 £5,704 Scotland 345,000 14.8% 7.7 £16.17 42,932 2,232 £6,464 Northern Ireland 65,000 9.2% 6.7 £14.55 6,333 329 £5,090 UK 5,014,000 18.2% 7.5 £16.75 628,395 32,677 £6,532

Table 2 – unpaid overtime for occupations with longest average unpaid hours

Occupation Number employees working unpaid overtime Per cent working unpaid overtime Average unpaid hours Teaching and educational professionals 735,000 52.5% 12.1 Chief Executive 41,000 39.5% 11.4% Legal professionals 69,000 42.5% 10.2 Hospitality and catering managers 40,000 17.6% 9.7 Functional managers* 374,000 40.4% 9.2 Production managers 133,000 32.1% 8.9 Managers in retail and leisure 88,000 32.7% 8.9 Finance institution managers 35,000 42.3% 8.9 Senior officers in the protective services 15,000 28.4% 8.7 Welfare professionals 50,000 31.3% 8.5

Source: the TUC’s analysis used unpublished ONS data from the Labour Force Survey (July-September 2018) and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2018)

*Functional managers: financial managers, marketing and sales directors, purchasing managers, advertising and public relations directors, human resource managers, IT managers.

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