Number of Singaporeans working overtime drops by 10%: survey

Though 9 in 10 don’t receive overtime pay.

While an overwhelming majority of Singapore employees still burn the midnight oil, recent figures revealed that work life balance for local workers are getting better.

According to Morgan McKinley’s latest Working Hours Survey, over two-thirds of the nearly 1,000 respondents stated that they felt obliged to work longer than their contracted hours. This reflects a 10% drop from the number who responded similarly on 2014.

Further, about 8 in 10 (80%) of those who said they worked longer than their contracted hours felt more productive during this time.

Of those who work beyond their contracted hours, almost 9 in 10 (90%) were not paid for their overtime work.

In addition, while over half (57%) of surveyed workers stated that long working hours are having a significant impact on their work life balance, they felt this was something they could deal with.

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that many employers now offer more flexible working arrangements. Half of those surveyed shared that they could exercise discretion on start and finish times and more than a third could take time off in lieu of extra hours worked.

Morgan McKinley notes, though, that over 1 in 10 (12%) professionals were contracted to work more than 46 hours when the Ministry of Manpower’s set legal limit is 44 hours.

Over 3 in 10 (35%) of respondents also shared that long working hours have significantly impacted and required them to make sacrifices in their personal and family life.