The number of people working paid overtime in the UK has fallen by nearly half a million in the last year to just under four million. Official data shows that in Summer 2009, 15.8 per cent of employees in the UK earned paid overtime, a fall of 1.5 percentage points since Summer 2008.
Employees were working an average of six and a half hours paid overtime per week this year, a fall of 12 minutes on 2008.The average amount of weekly overtime works out at £2,888 a year per employee. Workers across the UK earned a total of £10 billion in paid overtime, £1 billion less than last year. Further analysis reveals that 55 per cent of the decline in paid overtime is due to job losses, with the other 45 per cent due to employees having fewer opportunities for overtime.
TUC