The total unpaid overtime worked by Brit’s last year is the equivalent of over a million full time jobs, the Trades and Union Congress (TUC) reported on Thursday.
According to the TUC, Brit’s worked around two billion hours of unpaid overtime last year, worth around £29.2 billion to the UK economy.
The TUC took the occasion of the findings to announce the date of this years ‘Work Your Proper Hours Day’, on February the 24. The day is a light-hearted campaign to call on employers to thank staff for the extra hours they put in.
Findings by the TUC also revealed that keeping workers back isn’t always the most productive method for an employer. Often employers pressure their workers to stay longer hours, but taking on extra employees is more efficient and creates much needed jobs for the UK economy
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, “The heroic amount of extra unpaid hours put in by millions of workers make a vital – but often unsung – contribution to the UK economy.
“While many politicians and financial institutions have spectacularly failed to do their bit to help the UK economy, millions of hard-working staff clearly have and we hope employers congratulate them for their efforts on Work Your Proper Hours Day this year.”
The number of workers doing unpaid overtime has increased by more than a million since records began in 1992, when 4.2 million people regularly did unpaid overtime, to 5.3 million people in 2011.
“…while many of the extra unpaid hours worked could easily be reduced by changing work practices and ending the UK’s culture of pointless presenteeism, a small number of employers are exploiting staff by regularly forcing them to do excessive amounts of extra work for no extra pay,” Barber said.
“This attitude is not only bad for workers’ health, it’s bad for the economy too as it reduces productivity and holds back job creation.”
