One in 10 employees in Germany works overtime hours

Around one in 10 employees in Germany worked more than their contractually-agreed hours in 2024, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). While most of this overtime was remunerated, some employees did report working unpaid extra hours. 

4,4 million workers did overtime in 2024

Of the 39,1 million employees working in Germany in 2024, 11 percent worked longer hours on average last year than stipulated in their work contract. This is the equivalent of around 4,4 million employees and is a slight decrease compared to last year, when 4,6 million employees reported extra working hours. 

Of the 4,4 million employees who worked additional hours, around half reported working up to five hours of overtime per week, while 15 percent reported working up to 15 hours extra per week. 

The data from Destatis shows that most of this overtime was paid: 71 percent of survey respondents said the hours were added to a time account, while 16 percent received overtime compensation directly. Nearly one in five (19 percent), however, said that they worked unpaid overtime. 

Overtime is particularly common in the financial services and energy sectors, where more than 16 percent of employees reported working longer hours than agreed last year. In contrast, only 6 to 8 percent of employees in the hospitality, cleaning and security sectors worked overtime. 

What are the rules on overtime in Germany?

In Germany, overtime is allowed but it must be remunerated with either time off in lieu or extra salary, and it cannot legally exceed the maximum working hours of 10 hours per day, averaging out over eight hours over a six-month period. 

Currently, the CDU government is looking at relaxing Germany’s working hours regulations to replace the daily maximum hours with weekly maximum hours, with the aim of boosting productivity and alleviating the worker shortage.