GENEVA (ILO News) – Nearly a century after adopting its first international standard on working time, a new study by the International Labour Office estimates that one in five workers around the world – or over 600 million persons – are still working more than 48 hours a week, often merely to make ends meet.

Among the countries for which the survey has data, Thailand ranks third with 46.7 per cent of people working more than 48 hrs per week[1]. This includes one in three salaried employees (as opposed to the self-employed). Globally, Peru topped the list with 50.9 per cent of workers ^2/, followed by the Republic of Korea with 49.5 per cent.

In addition, the minimum legal entitlement for annual holiday in Thailand is also among the lowest of the Asian countries included, at 10 days or less. That’s lower than the minimum legal entitlement in Cambodia , Indonesia and Viet Nam .

The new study, Working Time Around the World: Trends in working hours, laws and policies in a global comparative perspective ^1/ says an estimated 22 per cent of the global workforce, or 614.2 million workers, are working “excessively” long hours. Spotlights working time in over 50 countries

The study spotlights working time in over 50 countries, and for the first time explores the implications for working time policies in developing and transition countries. For the most part, it shows that the distribution of working hours in developing and transition countries to be highly diverse, with some individuals working very long hours, and others working short hours.

Average working hours in the  manufacturing sector across the world largely range between 35 to 45 hours per week, but are significantly longer in a number of developing countries,, including Thailand which is the only country where the hours of work in manufacturing average over 59 per week[2] . Thailand is also the only country where the hours worked in manufacturing are longer than those in the services sectors. But in some types of services work employees are also working 50 hours or more, including transport storage and communication (50 hours a week), real estate and business actives (50.7), financial intermediation (52.9), health and social work (53.4 hrs)[3] .

Informal employment is another major source of longer working hours. Nearly 57 per cent of all self-employed workers in Thailand are working more than 50 hours per week. Very few self-employed people (only about one in eight) work less than 35 hours a week.

Almost 80 percent of the Thai self-employed are aged over 41 years old; in the other Asian countries for which data was available (Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) the majority are in their 30’s or younger.

Shorter working hours, the report says, can have positive consequences including benefits to workers’ health and family lives, reduced accidents at the workplace, as well as greater productivity and equality between the sexes. At the same time, the study says a considerable number of short-hours workers in developing and transition countries may be underemployed, and thus more likely to fall into poverty.

“The good news is that progress has been made in regulating normal working hours in developing and transition countries, but overall the findings of this study are definitely worrying, especially the prevalence of excessively long hours”, said Jon C. Messenger, Senior Research Officer for the ILO’s Conditions of Work and Employment Programme and a co-author of the study.

Attempts to reduce hours in these countries have been unsuccessful for various reasons including the need of workers to work long hours simply to make ends meet and the widespread use of overtime by employers in an effort to increase their enterprises’ output under conditions of low productivity, the report says, noting that, generally speaking, laws and policies on working time have a limited influence on actual working hours in developing economies, especially in terms of maximum weekly hours, overtime payments and their effect on informal employment.

The study provides a number of suggested policy points designed to advance decent work in the area of working time. Some of these policy suggestions include:

·          reducing long working hours to lessen the risk of occupational injuries and illnesses, and their associated costs to workers, employers, and society as a whole;

·          adopting family-friendly working time measures adapted to national circumstances, such as flexi-time, emergency family leave, and part-time work;

·          promoting the development of high quality part-time work, shaped by local institutions and traditions and informed by the principles and measures found in the ILO’s Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 (No. 175), which can help promote gender equality;

·          adopting reasonable statutory hours limits that can contribute towards enhancing firms’ productivity, and measures to assist enterprises to improve their productivity, in order to help break the “vicious cycle” of long working hours and low pay;

·          considering measures that allow workers to devote more time to their families and to have more influence over their work schedules, in order to make formal economy jobs a possibility for more women.

For more information please contact:

Sophy Fisher
Regional Information Officer
ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Tel: +662 288 2482

Krisdaporn Singhaseni
Information Officer – ILO Bangkok
Tel: +66 (0) 2288 1664
 

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