More employees in Singapore working unpaid hours

40% of employees in Singapore claim that they work up to 10 hours unpaid time per week, including working over lunch breaks and working overtime.

And they may not be far off the mark, according to the ADP Research Institute’s People at Work 2023: A Global Workforce View report, which surveyed 32,612 employees in 17 countries around the world. When the number of overtime hours is averaged out, employees in Singapore spend about 8.19 hours unpaid weekly.

This represents the second highest number of unpaid hours in the Asia-Pacific region after India (10.65 hours), but ahead of China (7.50 hours) and Australia (7.17 hours). The percentage of employees in Singapore who feel they work up to 10 unpaid hours increases to over 50% when it comes to parents with newborns.

Yvonne Teo, Vice President of HR, APAC, ADPP, said, “This could point to shifting priorities – parents may be more exacting about hours spent unpaid for their jobs if they have a newborn to care for.”

Findings from the ADP report also indicate an inconsistency with the popular adage that working more hours equate to a more productive employee. “Research has consistently shown that unhealthy work life balances can lead to a drop in productivity,” she said. When connected to the report finding that 45% of Singapore workers feel underpaid for their jobs, the two factors can lead to a drop in employee satisfaction over time.

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Solutions provided by Teo to alleviate overtime hours include employers ensuring that their employees have access to tools that maximise efficiency and quality of the work they produce; setting clear, reasonable expectations to help employees plan their workload and delegate task equally across employees; and using automation or outsourcing aspects of their work to external providers.