The economics of overtime working

Robert Hart, Cambridge, hardback, 167 pages, £45.00

This book claims to be the first comprehensive evaluation of the important phenomenon of overtime working.

It certainly contains a wide range of international statistics, with figures for many aspects of working time.

In the UK, the jobs with high rates of overtime include ambulance workers, bookmakers, nurses, agricultural workers, communication workers (post and telephone) and rail workers. While male rates of overtime have fallen slightly over the past 30 years, the proportion of women working overtime has doubled.

The author also looks at the phenomenon of unpaid overtime, where workers are willing (e.g. for promotion) or forced (by the firm’s culture) to work longer than their contractual hours.

Although somewhat academic and mathematical in places, the book does provide a huge amount of interesting material for anyone trying to understand the role and significance of overtime working.

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