§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the number of working hours that would be lost per year by(a) all employees, (b) male employees and (c) female employees if legislation were passed to prevent them from working longer than an average 48 hours per week. [153917]
§ Mr. SutcliffeEmployers are likely to respond in a variety of ways if legislation were passed to prevent employees from working longer than 48 hours on average. This makes any estimate of the total number of hours worked per year that could be lost difficult.
However, what can be estimated is the total number of hours per year that employees usually work over an average of 48 hours per week. For all employees it is estimated at around 990 million hours per year above 48 hours were worked as of spring 2003. This is equivalent to around 2¼ per cent of total hours usually worked by all employees. For male employees it is around 820 million hours per year and for female employees around 170 million hours per year.