About one in six office workers in Taiwan said they work more than 12 hours every day, a survey released yesterday by the Council of Labor Affairs said.
The results could shed light on the prevalence of overwork-related deaths.
The survey, conducted by the council’s online job bank, eJob, from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30, asked 2,046 office workers throughout the nation to describe their working hours and health conditions.
The survey found that while about half the respondents worked an average of eight hours or less per day, a little more than 18 percent reported working more than 12 hours per day on average.
Office workers not only work long hours, the survey showed, but also get little rest.
Asked about how much break time they got each working day, 32 percent of respondents said they did not take breaks, 15 percent said they took about half an hour in total and 32 percent said they took an hour a day.
A majority of workers did not get adequate sleep, with as many as 42 percent of workers surveyed saying they slept less than five hours every night.
Only 36 percent of workers said they were very satisfied or satisfied with their physical health, while 35 percent were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
A majority of 51 percent said they suffered back pain, followed by tired or dry eyes at 22 percent, wrist pain at 6 percent, headaches at 6 percent and weight problems at 5 percent.
The survey also showed that more than half of office workers wanted free health check-ups from their employers, compared with 28 percent who wished for longer breaks and 10 percent who wanted fitness equipment.
Hu Yu-chen (胡玉珍), a manager at the online job bank, said the data shed light on the increasing attention that has been paid to cases of death that are believed to be related to overwork.
Employers take extra caution when it comes to demanding overtime from employees and it is important for workers to manage their own health, she said.
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