According to the Trade Union Congress, the number of workers who do unpaid overtime work across the country has declined for four years in a row. In 2005, 4.76 million workers worked more hours than paid for, according to a study. This represents 19.4% of the total workforce, who worked an average of 7.4 extra hours per week.

The TUC has launched a “Work Your Proper Hours Day” in an attempt to encourage UK workers to lower the rate of unpaid overtime. It can be noted that the UK has a high rate of incidence of unpaid overtime work, as compared to other European Union countries, where the average proportion of workers working overtime unpaid is just 6.3%.

The Forum for Private Business, however, dismissed the move as misguided and irrelevant, especially given a small business setting, where rigid working hours may hinder a company’s productivity. Small businesses account for a third of the jobs provided the UK workforce.

In this regard, company formation and business solutions experts believe that firms should find a right balance between flexibility and efficiency. Unpaid overtime does help save on costs, but may not necessarily by beneficial in terms of employee productivity.

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One Response

  1. UK Company Blog » Going flexi

    28|Feb|2006

    [...] Unpaid overtime is likely to lead to low levels of productivity, and as we wrote on before, the Trade Union Congress wants to do something about it. After all, the UK has the highest incidence of unpaid overtime in all of Europe, with almost 20% of the total workforce putting in the extra hours without claiming the extra benefits and pay. [...]


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