Aussie workers doing $91 billion of unpaid overtime a year

Australian workers are doing $91 billion of unpaid overtime every year, new research shows.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work said that on average, people worked five weeks’ unpaid overtime each year, affecting their health, relationships, and financial wellbeing.

The research, released for the centre’s Go Home On Time day campaign, found that if the average worker was paid for their real hours, they’d be almost $300 a fortnight better off – adding up to an extra $7713 per year.

Other results from the survey found that workers aged 18 to 29 did the most unpaid overtime at 4.4 hours a week on average, compared to the overall average of 3.6 hours a week.

Fulltime employees also beat the overall average, with 4.1 hours of overtime a week.

A hefty majority of 70 per cent of people who worked unpaid overtime said it was an expectation at their workplace.

And 42 per cent of workers said the extra hours made them physically tied, while 32 per cent said they were stressed or anxious.

More than one in five said it left them sleep-deprived, and 29 per cent said unpaid overtime interfered with their personal life or their relationship.

The most common reasons for unpaid overtime were “too much work” (41 per cent) and “staff shortages” (31 per cent).

“Our research shows that unpaid overtime is robbing Australian workers of over $91 billion dollars per year, adding to cost-of-living pressures, interfering with family life and reducing wellbeing for millions,” Centre for Future Work acting director Fiona Macdonald said.

“While availability creep continues to erode work and life boundaries for millions of workers, new Right to Disconnect laws may already be having a positive effect as we have seen some reductions in unpaid overtime compared with previous years.”