UK employers claimed ?35bn of unpaid labour in 2019
By Caoimhe Toman
Date: Friday 28 Feb 2020
(Sharecast News) - Over 5m UK workers have put in a total of 2bn unpaid hours in 2019 and UK employers claimed ?35bn of free labour, said the TUC on Friday.
According to the latest report, the average person doing unpaid overtime has worked the year so far for free.
More than 5m people put in an average of 7.6 hours a week in unpaid overtime during 2019. This is equivalent to having ?6,828 taken out of individual pay packets.
Workers with more unpaid hours also affect men slightly more than women with an average of approximately 1.0bn hours compared 941m hours that women registered. More than one in six (18.3%) men work unpaid overtime, averaging 8.2 hours per week. A similar percentage of women (18.8%) also put in unpaid hours.
The TUC also found that 1 in 4 public sector employees (25.0%) worked unpaid overtime, compared to around 1 in 6 employees in the private sector (16.4%).
Employers should adopt good practice and take steps to manage down unpaid overtime hours, they argued.
The report also called for UK workers' rights to be protected in any deal the government makes with the EU post-Brexit.
TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said: "The government needs to crack down on Britain's long hours culture. Too many bosses are getting away with stealing their workers' time.
"That's why any EU Trade deal needs to guarantee that employment rights, like those covered by the Working Time Directive, are protected in the future."
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