Monday, 17 May 2021: A recent study by the World Health Organisation, (WHO) has found out that long working hours are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. The study, which was the first of its kind globally, linked 745,000 deaths in 2016 to stroke and heart disease caused by working long hours.
According to the findings of the research, people living in South East Asia and the Western Pacific region were the most affected.The trend is set to become even worse due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the WHO.
People who work for a minimum of 55 hours a week have a higher risk of stroke (35%), and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease compared to people working between 35-40 hours a week, the study found.
Almost three quarters of those that died as a result of working long hours were older or middle aged men, according to the study. Often, the deaths occurred much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the long hours were worked.
Over a month ago, a 45-year-old HSBC Regulatory Programme Manager, made a post on LinkedIn which gained extensive publicity. In the post, the man, Jonathan Frostick described how he had a wake-up call over long hours.
According to the post, he had barely sat down on a Sunday afternoon to prepare for the working week ahead when he felt a tightness in his chest, a throbbing in his throat, jawline and arm, and difficulty breathing.
"I got to the bedroom, so I could lie down, and got the attention of my wife who phoned 999," he said.
While getting better from his heart-attack, Mr. Frostick decided to adjust his work schedule.
"I';m not spending all day on Zoom anymore," he said.
Several comments trailed his post, by hundreds of readers, who identified with his condition and also shared their experiences of overwork and the impact it’s had on their health.
Mr. Frostick didn’t blame his employer for the long hours he had to put in, but one respondent said: "Companies continue to push people to their limits without concern for your personal well-being."
Mr. Frostick’s bank, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, (HSBC) said everyone at the bank wished him a full and speedy recovery.
"We also recognise the importance of personal health and wellbeing and a good work-life balance. Over the last year we have redoubled our efforts on health and wellbeing.
"The response to this topic shows how much this is on people';s minds and we are encouraging everyone to make their health and wellbeing a top priority."
WHO officials said even though the study did not cover the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, the recent increase in remote jobs and economic slowdown have probably increased long working hours related risks.
"We have some evidence that shows that when countries go into national lockdown, the number of hours worked increase by about 10%," WHO technical officer Frank Pega said.
About a third of all work-related disease are caused by long working hours, the study found. This makes it the largest occupational disease burden.
The research team revealed that there are two ways longer working hours lead to poor health: firstly, through physiological responses to stress, and secondly because longer hours meant workers were more likely to adopt health-harming behaviours such as tobacco and alcohol use, less sleep and exercise, and an unhealthy diet.
The number of people working long hours was increasing before the pandemic struck, and was around 9% of the total global population, the WHO said.
Office for National Statistics, (ONS), in the United Kingdomdiscovered that people working from home during the pandemic were putting in an average of six hours of unpaid overtime a week. People who did not work from home put in an average of 3.6 hours a week overtime, the ONS said.
