CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Hours Off the Clock

January 2017

Written by: Andrew S. Green

Working Paper Number:

CES-17-44

Abstract

To what extent do workers work more hours than they are paid for? The relationship between hours worked and hours paid, and the conditions under which employers can demand more hours 'off the clock,' is not well understood. The answer to this question impacts worker welfare, as well as wage and hour regulation. In addition, work off the clock has important implications for the measurement and cyclical movement of productivity and wages. In this paper, I construct a unique administrative dataset of hours paid by employers linked to a survey of workers on their reported hours worked to measure work off the clock. Using cross-sectional variation in local labor markets, I find only a small cyclical component to work off the clock. The results point to labor hoarding rather than efficiency wage theory, indicating work off the clock cannot explain the counter-cyclical movement of productivity. I find workers employed by small firms, and in industries with a high rate of wage and hour violations are associated with larger differences in hours worked than hours paid. These findings suggest the importance of tracking hours of work for enforcement of labor regulations.

Document Tags and Keywords

Keywords Keywords are automatically generated using KeyBERT, a powerful and innovative keyword extraction tool that utilizes BERT embeddings to ensure high-quality and contextually relevant keywords.

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:
economist, employee, employ, employed, labor productivity, labor, job, workplace, workforce, worker, occupation

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:
Metropolitan Statistical Area, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ordinary Least Squares, New York Times, Current Population Survey, Longitudinal Business Database, Department of Labor, North American Industry Classification System, American Community Survey, Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics, Protected Identification Key, Employment History File, Quarterly Workforce Indicators, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Business Dynamics Statistics

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