WORKING LONG HOURS A HEALTH RISK
IT’S OFFICIAL! Working long hours is bad for your health! A ground-breaking study by the ILO and WHO published in May revealed that working at least 55 hours a week or more is a serious health hazard that can lead to premature death.
This first-of-its-kind global analysis of the link between loss of life and health, and working long hours, based on extensive data from about 2 300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970-2018, shows that working long hours led to 745 000 deaths from strokes and heart disease in 2016 alone – a 29% increase since 2002.
Between 2000-2016, the number of deaths from heart disease due to working long hours increased by 42%, and from strokes by 19%.
The disturbing trend in the current Covid-19 narrative is that the number of people working long hours is increasing, and currently stands at 9% of the total population globally.
Alas, if you do work 55 or more hours a week, you have an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from a heart attack, compared to working 35-40 hours a week.
Beleaguered governments and corporates are battling to manage working hours and practices as the vaccination rollout gathers momentum, albeit at the mercy of new waves and variants of Covid-19 and disruption of vaccine supplies, especially in emerging countries due to vaccine nationalism, inequality and poverty. The danger is that the pandemic is accelerating developments that could feed the trend towards increased working time.
This is a wake-up call for global leaders, including President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni trying to navigate recovery and reconstruction. Containing wage restraints and creating jobs in the hour of need is one thing, but not at the cost of the occupational health burden of employees and their conditions.
“Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard. It’s time that governments, employers, and employees wake up to the fact that long working hours can lead to premature death,” warns Dr Maria Neira, the director of WHO’s Environment, Climate Change and Health Department.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concurs.
“Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work. Many businesses have been forced to scale back or shut down operations to save money, and people who are still on the payroll end up working longer hours.
No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease. Governments, employers and workers need to work together to agree on limits to protect the health of workers.”
The study reveals that working long hours is the risk factor with the largest occupational disease burden today, which begs new thinking by governments, employers, employees, health-care specialists and labour organisations.
South-East Asia boasted the highest percentage of people working 55 or more hours a week at 11.7% followed by Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean at 11.4% each.
Angola has the dubious distinction of having the highest proportion of the population working 55 hours per week or more at 33.7%; with Egypt, Lebanon and Ukraine with the highest estimated death rates from heart disease attributable to long working hours.
In terms of gender balance, this is one metric where men aged 40 to 74 are much worse off both in terms of working long hours and exposure to heart disease and strokes, and death.
In South Africa, despite the fact that the Freedom Charter and Constitution enshrine a 40-hour working week, WHO/ILO estimates that in 2016 some 3 000 South Africans out of every 100 000 worked 55 hours or more a week.
Productivity tends to increase despite a decline in the workforce. Gig and teleworking through platforms can also be used to evade employment regulation. Workers and bosses, beware!