GWhen it comes to overtime, the management consultants are way ahead. The industry thrives on its image as a springboard for ambitious young professionals with an attractive starting salary and long working hours. At least when looking at overtime, this cliché is confirmed: management consultants work 5.18 hours more per week than agreed in the employment contract, shows the 2019 working time monitor of the consulting company Compensation Partners (like WELT, belongs to Axel Springer).
Whether consultant, lawyer or banker: When the competition is fierce in the job, employees rarely get around overtime. “If you are dissatisfied with the workload here, it is more worthwhile to question whether this is the right job and where you really want to go in your career,” advises career coach Brigitta Bidlingmaier.
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According to the federal government, the Germans worked more than two billion hours of overtime in 2017. According to the Compensation Partners study, 54 percent of employees regularly work overtime, an average of three hours a week. Men are affected somewhat more often than women. And overtime usually increases with the qualification of the employees.
Legally, the Working Hours Act applies to employees in all industries and professions. Even with overtime, almost every employee can refer to the statutory maximum working hours and prescribed break times.
Source: WORLD infographic
Managers and executives work most of the overtime, but most of it is unpaid. This is partly due to the higher salary. Anyone who earns above the contribution assessment ceiling of the statutory pension insurance (since 2021 gross 7100 euros in the west and 6700 euros gross in the east) can usually not count on any remuneration for their overtime. This was decided by the Federal Labor Court in a ruling from 2012.
As the Compensation Partners Working Time Monitor 2019 reveals, employees with a salary of 91,000 to 100,000 euros work 5.16 hours of overtime every week. For top earners with an annual salary of more than 120,000 euros, it is even 6.83 hours overtime.
Workplace stress: the rules for mini jobbers
Even marginally employed people have the option of accumulating overtime and compensating for it with a working time account. However, the prerequisite is that the wage does not exceed the limit of 450 euros per month or 5400 euros per year. “Even mini-jobbers are completely normal employees and have the same entitlement to overtime compensation,” emphasizes labor law expert Alexander Birkhahn.
In general, however, low-wage earners work less overtime. According to the working time monitor, those who earn less than 20,000 euros a year work an average of 1.9 hours a week more than agreed.
However, there are also professions in which overtime is almost part of the job description. A survey by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) from 2018 shows that full-time employees in the hospitality industry work 47.6 hours a week – significantly more than in most other industries. A third of full-time employees work more than five additional hours a week.
Atypical working hours are part of the hospitality industry. Restaurants, cafes and bars have the most customers when other people have finished work – in the evenings and on weekends. This also has an impact on working hours. 81 percent of employees work on weekends, two-thirds are also regularly on Sundays.
According to information from the “Food, Enjoyment, Gaststätten” trade union from 2019, 45 percent of overtime in the tourism and catering industry alone remains unpaid. This is also due to the fact that there are many 450 euro jobbers working in the industry whose employment contracts do not allow additional pay. According to the union, the hours are either not paid at all or paid black.
Overtime: Almost 10,000 for skilled workers
As soon as a CJEU ruling from May 2019 is implemented in Germany, companies must record the working hours of their employees electronically. It is important that working hours are measured completely and fairly, believes Marta Böning, Head of Individual Labor Law on the Federal Board of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB). “Effective electronic time and attendance goes well with the way people work these days.”
With trust-based working hours, employees can organize their own working hours. So far, this has worked without a time clock or electronic recording. However, here too, employees must document overtime, stipulates the Working Hours Act.
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With or without time recording: The Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the research institute of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), sees a trend towards less paid overtime due to the increasing flexibility of working hours.
According to the IAB, employees in the service industry work 4.1 unpaid overtime every month, while employees in the information and communications industry work three hours a month unpaid. In contrast, most paid overtime is in the manufacturing and construction sectors.
Source: WORLD infographic
According to Arbeitszeitmonitor 2019, a lot of overtime can accumulate in the course of working life. According to this, managers work 15,390 hours of overtime over the course of their careers. With normal skilled workers there are still 9655 hours.
In addition to profession and salary, age also makes a difference when it comes to overtime, according to the working time monitor. According to this, young people and young professionals generally work less overtime than older colleagues. People under the age of 20 work an average of 1.74 hours more per week. This value increases slowly over the course of one’s professional life. Employees over the age of 60 do more than twice as much overtime with 3.66 hours.
This article was first published in September 2019.
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