Overtime in Munich: Revealing the Extent of Employee Diligence and Unpaid Work

How much overtime do employees in Munich work each year? The “diligence level” provides cross-industry projections.

Munich – People work hard in Munich’s companies. A little too diligent, according to the Food-Pleasure-Gastronomy Union (NGG). The “diligence level” for Munich was determined in an extensive survey. In the balance sheet that has now been published: A lot of overtime, a lot of it apparently unpaid.

Munich residents worked around 18.37 million additional hours of overtime at work last year. Of these, 11.69 million were free of charge. These are the numbers that the Pestel Institute commissioned by the NGG gives in its “Overtime Monitor”.

“Overtime monitor” for Munich: NGG sees clear signs of a “shortage of skilled workers”

Please note: the scientists involved used current microcensus data in their investigation. The basis for the overtime calculation is the transfer of industry average values ​​to the employment structure in Munich.

“All employees taken together have virtually ‘gifted’ the companies in Munich around 168.28 million euros through unpaid overtime. And that is extremely economical – namely only calculated on a minimum wage basis,” Tim Lünnemann from NGG Munich is quoted as saying in a press release. For Lünnemann, the projections are clear signs of a “massive shortage of skilled workers”.

“But it only works if hotels and restaurants are willing to pay attractive wages”

The catering industry plays a special role in the Pestel Institute’s “Overtime Monitor”. “In hotels, restaurants and pubs alone, employees in Munich worked around 450,000 hours of overtime last year. 183,000 of them without pay – basically for free,” according to a press release on the estimates.

Lünnemann urgently warns against continuing to rely on “goodwill overtime” from employees: “It is high time to fill the skilled worker hole that the corona pandemic has made even larger. However, this only works if hotels and restaurants are prepared to pay attractive wages.” The NGG wants to address the shortage of skilled workers in the catering industry at a union conference in November in Bremen, at which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is also expected.

Restaurants in Munich have repeatedly closed in recent years. Not just because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find staff. Is the crisis getting worse? “We are still in the recovery phase after Corona – and now the high costs. That can be tight for some,” says Thomas Geppert, Bayer boss of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) in spring 2023.

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