Employees increasingly feel obliged to work unpaid overtime, with the average Australian doing more than nine hours a week.
Nearly nine in ten employees (86 percent) worked at least some unpaid overtime every week, with the education sector achieving the most free hours on average at 12.2 hours per week.
Unions NSW surveyed almost 5,500 people across multiple sectors and found a majority of workers (64 percent) believed they would limit their career prospects if they didn’t put in extra hours.
Using the average Australian annual salary of $96,660, the association considered it a donation of $21,000 from employees to their employers per year.
Union secretary Mark Morey called for changes to the Fair Work Act, which allows unpaid overtime if ‘extra hours are reasonable’.
Nearly nine in ten employees (86 percent) worked at least some unpaid overtime every week (stock image)
He said the volume of the data shows that sectors have become dependent on the extra hours.
“More often than not, employees have to work through lunch breaks, show up early and finish late, and work extra hours on weekends,” he said.
‘This impacts their physical and mental wellbeing, preventing them from spending time with their families and contributing to their communities. The fear of reprisals, missing out on promotion and threats from employers to give staff a worse schedule all prevent employees from leaving on time. .’
Education (12.2 hours per week), agriculture, forestry and fishing (12 hours) and transport, post and storage (8.99 hours) were the sectors that recorded the most unpaid overtime.
Part-time and temporary workers also found themselves working for free, working an average of about 6.5 unpaid hours.
Two-thirds of employees believed their bosses had become reliant on unpaid overtime, with respondents worried that refusing to stay late would push them down the organizational pecking order.
Two-thirds of workers believed their bosses had become reliant on unpaid overtime, with respondents worried that refusing to stay late would hinder their career prospects
“If I only exercise my right to work during working hours, I am compared to other single youth who work longer hours to please the boss and get the support of their family,” one respondent reported.
‘I feel alienated from the staff in the office because this working style is being forced to become the norm.’
Another said refusing to work unpaid hours would be seen by management as a “job performance problem” rather than “the overwork and bullying problem that it really is.”
The study spoke to both union and non-union workers between November 2023 and February 2024.