Very little movement on hours and holiday entitlement

There was very little movement on hours or holidays this year with only 10 deals leading to cuts in hours and four agreements which improved basic holiday entitlement in the current pay round. The breakdown of holidays and hours by sectors produces figures very similar to those in the last payround.

Summary

The main details on working hours were as follows:

l there was very little movement on working hours this year - only 10 agreements actually cut hours during the payround, with a further half dozen looking at future cuts in the next pay round or beyond;

* over half of agreements (55%) and workers covered (58%) had a basic working week of less than 38 hours;

* thirteen percent of workers are on 35 hours or less but there is still a big gap between non-manuals (36% on 35 or less) and manual workers (1% on 35 or less);

* nearly one in 10 workers still has a 40-hour plus basic working week

The main details on holidays were as follows:

* only four agreements saw increased basic holiday entitlement;

* there were 12 agreements with improved service-related holiday;

* the overall figures are the same as last year with nearly two-thirds of agreements (63%) covering more than a third of workers (37%) providing at least 25 days' leave as basic entitlement.