Catalan companies save 603.2 million euros per year on unpaid overtime hours
Unpaid work has soared to 486,000 hours per week in recent years
Barcelona"Unpaid overtime is an endemic fraud in our society." A study carried out by the Comissions Obreres de Catalunya (CCOO) union quantifies the volume of extra hours worked by Catalans. It also points to a sharp increase in recent years: while in 2019 workers worked an average of 791,000 overtime hours per week, during the first quarter of this year the volume has risen to 1.02 million, representing an increase of 29.3%.
Furthermore, unpaid hours have seen an even more significant jump, of 43.9%, rising from 309,018 to 444,667 weekly in the first quarter compared to 2019. The study was produced using data from the first three months of the year, although the Active Population Survey (EPA) published this Tuesday raised the number of unpaid hours to 486,000. According to data collected by the union, this situation allows Catalan employers to save up to 11.6 million euros in unpaid overtime per week. Annually, therefore, workers fail to receive and contribute up to 603.2 million euros annually.
The volume of people doing these overtime hours has also increased significantly. In 2019, 108,447 people worked paid or unpaid overtime, while during the first quarter of the year, the number of workers rose to 157,194 – 44.9% more. As for unpaid overtime, during the same period, employees who do it have almost doubled (up 89.1%) and have gone from 43,712 to 82,656 on average weekly during the first three months of the year.
For these reasons, CCOO considers the approval of the new hourly control regulation planned for after the summer "essential" to control the "abusive use" of these overtime hours. "It is a necessary measure," explained the general secretary of CCOO of Catalonia, Belén López, who also called for it to be a "digital, reliable and interoperable" control with the Labor Inspectorate. López also identified the increase in wages and the control of prices of basic products, "especially housing," as two complementary measures to combat the extra hours worked. In addition, the general secretary called for a reduction in working hours.
A gender bias
As explained by López and the secretary of economy and labor of the union, Saida Ehliluch El Antit, these increases have been catapulted by a strong gender bias. Specifically, women are the ones who have most increased, by 117.7% to be precise, their overtime hours, whether paid or not, while men have reduced their extra hours by 11.9% during the same time. Regarding unpaid hours, women have gone from working 100,559 per week in 2019 to 244,054 in 2026, which represents an increase of 142.7%. On the contrary, men have experienced a slight decrease: if in 2019 they worked an average of 208,459, during this first quarter they have worked 200,613.
By sectors, unpaid hours are concentrated in services, which account for 71.4% of the total, while construction and industry add up to 6.4% and 22.2%, respectively. Thus, the high concentration of unpaid overtime in services favors women being disadvantaged, as it is a more feminized sector labor-wise. By age, young people between 25 and 34 years old are the ones who work the most unpaid overtime hours, with a total of 54,084.
