How much overtime do TEK members work?

According to TEK's latest labour market survey, 66 per cent of TEK members work overtime. In terms of individual sectors, the percentage is quite similar in the private sector (67%), in universities (69%) and in municipalities (68%). Slightly fewer state employees work overtime, 58%. Supervisors work overtime more often than specialists.

The survey does not specify whether the overtime reported by the respondents refers to overtime as defined by law or, for example, work that they do on top of their regular hours within flexible working hours.

The Rules of Overtime

The employee and the employer must agree on overtime separately each time and working overtime requires the consent of both parties. The employee can therefore, as a rule, also refuse to work overtime, and on the other hand, only overtime approved by the employer entitles the employee to overtime remuneration.

There is a separate compensation for overtime, but how much do you actually get paid for working overtime? That depends on whether it is daily or weekly overtime. Daily overtime is defined as working over eight hours in one day. Weekly overtime is defined as working over 40 hours a week. As a rule, weekly overtime refers to work that is not counted as daily overtime and that exceeds 40 hours.

The compensation for daily overtime is the regular salary plus 50 per cent for the first two hours and the regular salary plus 100 per cent for the following hours. The compensation for weekly overtime is the regular salary plus 50 per cent. The parties can also agree that overtime will be compensated as time off in lieu of a monetary compensation. The same increments apply to time off as to monetary compensation. If you work overtime on a Sunday or a holiday, you are also entitled to a Sunday work increment.

An employee’s working time may not, in principle, exceed 48 hours per week, overtime included, over a period of four months.

Working overtime and compensating it as part of the regular salary cannot be agreed in the employment contract, but must be agreed separately.