How much overtime does employees work in Germany? How many hours is that in your entire career? What can time recording systems change? The “Working Time Monitor” provides answers.

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ECJ urges work time recording

The ECJ judgment of 14.05.2019 in case C 55/18 obliges Companys to reduce the working hours of their employees Employees to log. This means that all companies would have to install a timekeeping system. It is now up to German case law to decide how the judgment of the ECJ is to be dealt with.

In this country, employers have so far been obliged to record overtime in excess of the normal working time of eight hours per day. As is so often the case, the reactions are very different: while unions welcome the verdict, it hails Criticism on the part of employers' associations. However, it is doubtful whether such a regulation will reduce overtime.

About the study “Working Time Monitor”

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In our "Working Time Monitor" we took a closer look at 215.403 statements from employees regarding their overtime. The result: a third of the skilled workers in Germany work for more than a year in the course of their entire working life for free. The result sounds even more dramatic for Executives, because 74 percent of them work a total of 15.390 hours of overtime without compensation. That's a full 21 months again.

But as extreme as these numbers may sound, 46 percent of employees say they don't do any overtime at all. So we are dealing with very different ones Work-Life-Do balances. But let's take a step back and take a closer look at the data. Around 40 percent of the information we examined came from women and 60 percent from men. Most of the information relates to skilled workers (92,6 percent). Only 7,4 percent are from executives.

Overtime by gender: men work a little longer

Looking at gender, we find that female Employees with 2,2 hours of overtime per week work less than their male colleagues, who work 3,7 hours of overtime per week. One reason for this is the sector distribution. This is how we find in Industries, where overtime is less prevalent, more women than in sectors heavily affected by overtime.

For example, in social institutions we count more female employees than workers. Here's the average overtime hours at 2,24 hours per week. In return, we have more men in logistics and transportation, with weekly average weekly 4,23 overtime. But the industry is just one of the reasons for the gender difference. The distribution of women and men in management positions is also uneven. In positions with high overtime, we usually find more men than women.

Business consultants do the most overtime

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Let's just stay with industries: Most of the overtime in this comparison is provided by management consultants. According to our evaluation, they are working overtime on 5,18.

A quarter of the employees working in this area receive compensation. The usually high salary in management consulting is intended to compensate for the additional burden.

Hardly any regional differences

The result for the comparison by federal state is interesting: There is hardly any difference here. This means that the amount of work is almost the same everywhere in Germany. At least as far as the amount of overtime is concerned. We see one light higher value in city-states like Hamburg or Berlin.

Logically, metropolitan areas include most and also large companies. The likelihood of working overtime in these regions is simply higher. But in principle, one federal state has no influence on the number of overtime hours. The difference is due to economic structural factors.

Higher incomes lead to more overtime

Another, perhaps not so surprising result: In higher income classes, the number of overtime hours increases. While professionals with an annual salary of up to 20.000 spend Euro 1,9 overtime per week, those working above 120.000 Euro spend an additional 6,8 hours on average. Executives with over 120.000 Euro a year come in for over 10 hours a week.

Of course it has that too Age an impact on overtime: Young Professionals under 20 years of age work an average of 1,7 hours of overtime per week. Employees between the ages of 30 and 39 work 3,1 hours of overtime. After the age of 60, employees stay around 3,7 hours longer per week Office . One reason for this is the higher proportion of executives the older the employees are.

Working time study - results in summary

Our study shows two aspects in particular clear:

  1. Many overtime at management level: Workers in Germany work a lot and above all the management level is strongly affected by overtime. However, we also know from our many years of observations that since 2009 less and less overtime incurred. 2009, after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the economy was bad and the uncertainty was correspondingly large. At that time, the average number of overtime hours was 6,6 per week. Since then, with the 10 boom, the number of overtime hours has dropped to 3,1 h / week. At the management level, however, overtime drops more slowly than with the skilled workers. Should overtime be covered nationwide in the future, the number of additional hours worked could increase again for a short time.
  2. Time recording means higher costsFrom a business point of view, time recording does not only mean higher bureaucracy, but above all higher costs. This is especially true in start-up companies in the start-up phase. We've seen a lot of overtime, especially among 30 executives. Until the 30. Year of life, they have already accumulated overtime on their account through 1.300. This commitment helps young companies to grow while keeping their personnel costs constant. If a working time record were to work, it would have growth-inhibiting consequences for such companies. But here, too, it is important to use the workforce with a sense of proportion.

Conclusion: New working models must not suffer from timekeeping

If the German case law complies with the ECJ ruling, even if only to a lesser extent, we have to rethink working hours and reconcile them with modern working models. Home office and remote work should not be affected.

They belong to our today Society who promotes family life and at the same time wants to be flexible in her job. The Working world 4.0 therefore requires an equally flexible and modern time recording model. And of course work is not only mandatory, but also necessary for a fulfilling life. One should not unduly limit or sanction this.


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