A report from an annual survey investigating working time, including overwork and unpaid overtime in Australia. Two of the key findings are widespread dissatisfaction with paid work hours, and employees working excessive unpaid overtime. On average, employees work unpaid overtime of 3.6 hours a week, equivalent to over 4.5 weeks a year.

The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025 seeks to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to ensure that pre-existing penalty and overtime rates in modern awards are not reduced. This paper provides an overview of penalty and overtime rates in Australia, presents key issues and provisions, and summarises the position of...

This year marks the fifteenth annual 'Go Home on Time Day' (GHOTD), an initiative of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, that shines a spotlight on the maldistribution of working hours and the scale of unpaid overtime worked by Australians.

A 'right to disconnect' could take several forms, and be implemented via different avenues in Australia. Based on international examples and the attitudes of workers in Australia, this report finds that implementing the right within the national employment standards would be the most effective.

This report outlines key challenges in organising working time in Australia’s current labour market. These include insecure, non-standard working arrangements; limited ability for workers to achieve optimal working hours; and the scale and cost of unpaid overtime.