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EmailOVER five million workers put in a record £26.9 billion worth of unpaid overtime last year, highlighting the long-hours culture in British industry, unions warned on Wednesday.
The TUC said that more people are doing unpaid overtime than at any time since records began in 1992, with an estimated 5.24 million employees working extra hours without pay last year.
Those doing extra work would have received an average of over £5,000 each if they had been paid, the TUC calculated.
The biggest increases in unpaid overtime were in London, the east Midlands and eastern England, while the average amount was just over seven hours a week, the study found.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "After years of progress, the numbers doing unpaid overtime has increased for the second year in a row. This is disappointing.
"But, while some of this is due to the long-hours culture that still dogs too many British workplaces, the recession will now be making many people scared of losing their job in the year ahead and joining the ever-growing dole queue."
The TUC calculated that, if everyone who worked unpaid did all the extra work at the start of the year, they would not get paid until February 27.
Mr Barber said that the TUC would not be promoting its usual light-hearted Work Your Proper Hours Day this year because of the state of the economy, adding: "The recession should instead provide a spur to make workplaces more productive and for managers to get staff to work together, not compete for who can stay the latest."
