Scots work 8 hours a week of unpaid overtime

Scots workers put in almost eight hours of unpaid overtime a week, official figures show.

About 290,000 Scots – one in nine of the workforce – get no extra pay for the hours they put in.

It means that 115 million hours of unpaid overtime a year, new figures released from Scottish Labour have revealed.

Analysis of the 2017 Annual Population Survey by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICE) estimates that, on average, Scots do 7.7 hours of unpaid overtime per week.

Labour economy spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “We desperately need to rebalance our economy so that it works for people, rather than just people working for the economy.

“This overtime effectively represents a cut to the wages of working people across Scotland.

“It also reveals how desperately understaffed some of or our key public services are.

“That is not an economy working for the many, it is one rewarding a privileged few.”