TUC report reveals unpaid overtime is on the rise

A new report from the TUC has revealed that over 5.5 million workers in the UK now do unpaid overtime, a figure which represents £28 billion worth of free labour a year, an increase of £5 billion since the last TUC analysis.

The TUC figures suggest that the number of workers doing unpaid overtime has risen by over a quarter of a million to more than one in five employees (22 per cent).

The report also found that women in professional occupations are the most likely to work unpaid overtime (57 per cent) although men are slightly more likely to work unpaid overtime overall (23 per cent compared with 21 per cent). Overall, those in professional occupations are most likely to do unpaid overtime (51 per cent) at an average of almost 9.5 hours a week, representing £7,316 a year of free labour to their employer.

TUC General Secretary, John Monks, commented: "Employer organisations are always whinging about the costs of what they call red tape, yet you never hear any gratitude for the vast amounts of unpaid overtime their staff put in.

"The truth is that when employers talk about the benefits of flexible labour markets, they mean stripping away terms and conditions, as many are now doing with occupational pensions. They point to the US as their preferred model, but people at work in the UK should be warned that on average annual leave is just 10 days compared with 25 in the UK."

(CL)