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[forum admin]

A new survey has found that UK workers and employees work around four extra hours each week unpaid. At the average national salary of £23,450 this means that employers receive £1.5bn unpaid labour per week.

Workers from Sheffield work the most unpaid hours in the country, giving on average 6.4 extra hours labour per week. 12% of the survey respondents across the country said they thought they worked over 7 hours unpaid every week.

58% of respondents said they are working more unpaid hours than ever before, with 71% saying they regularly work through lunch breaks, and 44% saying they often work late.

Almost half (45%) said they ate whilst they worked in order to get more work done. Three-quarters of employees said they’d work longer hours if it meant keeping their job.

Ash Ali, Marketing Director of online takeaway site Just-Eat.co.uk, which carried out the research, commented: “Our study shows that Brits are really selling themselves short in a bid to keep their jobs, where some employees are giving their employers an extra day’s work a week in unpaid man-hours. Whether the bosses recognise and appreciate this extra effort is another matter.”

[Robin Tetley]

I guess this is a fine line between people WANTING to do a bit of extra work and feeling like THEY HAVE TO do the extra work. One is fine IMHO and one isn't.

[Malcolm]

I think this matters actually and employers shouldn't let it happen.

[Jonathan]

It sounds a lot of cash when you say employers make 1 and a half billion a week but really they don't make anything. I mean a few minutes here and a few minutes there probably make up the time people spend going to the toilet or chatting or surfing the net. I don't have a problem with this at all. If there was a survey on what was lost due to these things it would probably make it even.