Unpaid overtime

In the Quality of Work Life Survey, overtime without compensation is dependent on the respondent's own opinion. Some may consider overtime staying at work without compensation for five minutes over working time, some do not count a short time over working time as working overtime.

If the respondent works overtime, for which he or she gets compensation as time off but in practice never has time to take all that time off, this can be regarded as overtime without compensation.

The maximum working time prescribed in the working hours legislation also concerns upper salaried employees even if they said that they had signed an employment contract where overtime is regarded as being included in their pay. Only the very top management remains outside the Working Hours Act.

Contract or project workers do not have agreed working time but they are paid on completed work. Then they cannot in principle work overtime either. If the respondent thinks he or she works much more than normal working time (e.g. over 40 hours per week), this can be counted as overtime without compensation.