job
Overtime – and still happy: When we like to work more
Germans worked 1.7 billion hours of overtime in 2016.
© Yuri_Arcurs / gettyimages
Germans work more than two billion extra hours a year. More than half of it is unpaid. Overtime as employee exploitation? Not necessarily, because overtime can also make you happy.
Despite the pandemic, Germans have accumulated a lot of overtime: In 2020, the overtime work totaled 1.67 billion hours, according to data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Although the total number fell slightly (1.86 billion overtime hours came together in 2019), the proportion of the work volume has hardly changed. In 2016, Germans worked around 1.7 billion hours of overtime. This resulted in a small request from the left parliamentary group to the federal government, according to the “image“. More than half of it, namely 947 million hours (56 percent), was unpaid. That equates to 31.5 unpaid hours per employee. Men in particular toil longer, 69.2 percent of the overtime was done by male employees. More often Reason for the overtime: The work cannot be done in the allotted time (33 percent). Only six percent of employees who work overtime are driven by additional income. This number has now grown to more than two billion hours of overtime.
“Overtime harms us all,” said the labor market policy spokeswoman for the left-wing parliamentary group, Jutta Krellmann, to “AFP”. “Some work until they drop, others have little or no work.” .
Unpaid overtime
Unpaid overtime because the quota cannot be managed in working hours – so modern wage slavery? The phenomenon of overtime cannot be summarized that easily. A survey by the software provider Qualtrics shows that overtime can even make you happy. In fact, a study by the federal government also shows that 18 percent cited having fun at work as a reason for working overtime. Anyone who thinks that simply working more hours is enough for more job satisfaction is wrong.
In Qualtrics’ survey, 72 percent of employees who work 55 to 60 hours a week were also the most satisfied, reports “Heap“. One of the reasons: Those who already like to work tend to do it longer. Overtime is therefore the result of job satisfaction and not the reason.
When overtime makes us happy
Important for this satisfaction: Employees want their work to be seen and appreciated. Unpleasant hard work until late in the evening? That doesn’t make anyone happy. Other points that have an impact on job satisfaction – and thus on the willingness to work overtime – are appropriate pay and career opportunities. The possibility of contributing to the achievement of corporate goals with overtime is also mentioned as a motivation for overtime.