Context: Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have released the estimates on large number of loss of life is associated with long working hours.
Key Highlights

• The number of people working long hours is increasing and this trend puts even more people at risk of work-related disability and early death.
• It is the first global analysis of the loss of life and health associated with working long hours jointly prepared by WHO and ILO.

Disease and Long Working Hours

• It estimated that in 2016, 3.98 lakh people died from stroke and 3.47 lakh from heart disease as a result of having worked at least 55 hours a week.
• It highlights that between 2000 and 2016, the number of deaths from heart disease due to working long hours increased by 42%, and from stroke by 19%.
• The study concludes that working 55 or more hours per week is associated with an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35-40 hours a week.

Impact of Long Working Hours on Gender

• It highlighted that the work-related disease burden is particularly significant in men (72% of deaths occurred among males), people living in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions, and middle-aged or older workers.
• Most of the deaths recorded were among people dying aged 60-79 years, who had worked for 55 hours or more per week between the ages of 45 and 74 years.
• The working long hours is now known to be responsible for about one-third of the total estimated work-related burden of disease.

Recommendations to protect workers

• The governments can introduce, implement and enforce laws, regulations and policies that ban mandatory overtime and ensure maximum limits on working time;
• The bipartite or collective bargaining agreements between employers and workers’ associations can arrange working time to be more flexible, while at the same time agreeing on a maximum number of working hours;
• The employees could share working hours to ensure that numbers of hours worked do not climb above 55 or more per week.