Report: Time for time-and-a-half?

The Taylor Review proposed that employees undertaking paid overtime should be guaranteed a minimum pay premium above their regular wage. This has opened the door to new policy thinking and experimentation around overtime. This Resolution Foundation report explores the evidence and policy options available on this issue.

Key findings:

• Overtime is less common than in the past, but still accounts for 1.1 billion hours of work annually.
• One in ten workers (2.6 million employees) report having worked paid-overtime. While this share has been relatively stable since the financial crisis, it is significantly lower than in the mid-1990s when nearly 18 per cent of employees were doing paid overtime.
• Overtime pay was particularly significant for young workers (18 per cent of total pay), part-timers (16 per cent) and staff in manufacturing (15 per cent).
• The UK is something of an outlier internationally with virtually no legislation around overtime, a state of affairs that was not always the case.

This briefing note provides an overview of some of the main trends in overtime, and discusses policies employed elsewhere in the world. Taken together, it suggests more could and should be done to support workers undertaking overtime.