Public Servant Lifestyle

New study shows real, but oh so slow, progress on long working hours, with teaching professionals still the occupational group that does the longest unpaid overtime.

Unpaid overtime is on the decline, but progress is so slow that it will take until 2030 to end regular unpaid overtime of more than 10 hours every week, according to an analysis of official statistics published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

Examination of the Government's Labour Force Survey, says the TUC, shows there has been a small decline in the proportion of the workforce doing more than 10 hours a week unpaid overtime over the last five years.

Almost 840,000 employees currently do unpaid overtime averaging more than 10 hours a week, which is 3.4% of the workforce - down from 4.1% since 2001. If that rate of progress continues, it will take until 2030 before no-one regularly does more than 10 hours extra a week - more than an extra day's work each week.

Teachers and lecturers are the occupational group that both do the longest unpaid overtime, but have cut back the most over the last five years.

Regular Overtime

Those teachers who do unpaid overtime regularly put in 11 hours six minutes a week, and would get paid on average more than ?9,500 if they were paid at their normal rate for their unpaid work. But this is nearly two hours (one hour 56 minutes) less than five years ago.

The group that most bucks the downwards trend are 'draughtpersons and building inspectors'. Those who do unpaid overtime now put in an average of six hours 6 minutes (worth almost ?3,400 if they were paid). This is an increase of one and a half hours, over the last five years.

Other groups who have seen an increase in the length of their unpaid overtime over the last five years are science professionals, public service professionals, business and statistical professionals and quality and customer care managers.

All the groups that do the longest unpaid overtime have seen a fall over the last five years, but in each case it is less than an hour a week, suggesting those sectors with the biggest problem are making 'real, but glacial' progress, according to the TUC.

Unpaid

The top five groups for unpaid overtime are (by occupational group/amount of unpaid overtime done by those reporting unpaid work (2006)/change since 2001/value of unpaid overtime):

Teaching Professionals (11 hours 6 minutes/one hour 54 minutes less/?9,621)

Protective Service Officers (10 hours 18 minutes/24 minutes less/?9,884)

Corporate Managers & Senior Officials (nine hours 30 minutes/54 minutes less/?20,632)

Functional Managers (nine hours/36 minutes less/?9,959)

Production Managers (nine hours/30 minutes less/?7,869)

Legal Professionals (eight hours 48 minutes/30 minutes less/?10,663)

www.workyourproperhoursday.com features no-nonsense information on people's working time habits and rights, as well as many innovative 'water-cooler' web innovations, including a self-diagnosis tool to help you work out your long hours problems - are you a desk junkie, a chaos theorist, or one of the other types?; downloadable materials to decorate your office, or e-cards to send to your colleagues; web games - can you work your hours, or will the overtime take its toll?; an overtime calculator to show you what your unpaid overtime would be worth if you were paid.

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