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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Overtime: Hazardous to Your Health
BNA's subscription-only Daily Report for Executives got a sneak peek at the September issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which will publish a report addressing the health and safety consequences of working overtime. According to BNA, the study "found that working in jobs with schedules that routinely involved overtime work or extended hours increased the risk of a job-related injury or illness." Moreover, "[w]orking overtime was associated with a 61 percent higher injury hazard rate when compared with jobs that did not involve overtime."
More from the BNA snapshot of the study:
"The results of this study suggest that jobs with long working hours are not more risky merely because they are concentrated in inherently hazardous industries or occupations, or because of the demographic characteristics of employees working those schedules," the report said. "Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that long working hours indirectly precipitate workplace accidents through a causal process, for instance by increasing fatigue or stress in affected workers."
The study on long work hours also found:
- Overtime schedules had the greatest relative risk of occupational injury or illness, followed by schedules of 12 or more hours per day and those of 60 or more hours per week. Working at least 12 hours a day was associated with a 37 percent increased hazard rate; working at least 60 hours per week was associated with a 23 percent increased hazard rate.
- The risk of injury was found to increase with the increasing length of the work schedule.
- Multivariate analyses indicated that the increased risks are not merely the result of the demanding work schedules being concentrated in riskier occupations or industries.
Posted by Robert Shull
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