The personal costs of unreasonable work hours

from This Working Life · host Australian Broadcasting Corporation

“It’s not reasonable to ask people to function without daylight, sleep and proper food for weeks and months at a time” - Ruby, lawyer.There’s been a lot of talk lately about reasonable and unreasonable work hours, thanks to a certain high profile legal case.Research has found Australians are working some of the longest hours in the world. It’s costing us tens of billions of dollars in unpaid wages, with experts calling it 'time theft'.So when is it ok for your boss to ask you to work overtime? And what is overwork doing to our brains and bodies?

What this episode covers

“It’s not reasonable to ask people to function without daylight, sleep and proper food for weeks and months at a time” - Ruby, lawyer. There’s been a lot of talk lately about reasonable and unreasonable work hours, thanks to a certain high profile legal case. Research has found Australians are working some of the longest hours in the world. It’s costing us tens of billions of dollars in unpaid wages, with experts calling it 'time theft'. So when is it ok for your boss to ask you to work overtime? And what is overwork doing to our brains and bodies?

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The personal costs of unreasonable work hours

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How long is this episode of This Working Life?

This episode is 25 minutes long.

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This episode was published on April 14, 2023.

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