Singapore- most overworked employees in APAC

A recent article on Singapore Business Review pointed out that Singapore has the most overworked employees in APAC. Singaporean workforce works an average of 45 hours per week.

That's the highest number of hours worked in Asia Pacific. Even ahead of China which has an average of 42 hours per week worked.

Adding to it, Singapore has one of the lowest average annual leave at 7 days a year. Which is just ahead of Thailand and China at six and five respectively.

Personally I thought we were already doing 14Days Annual Leave but I'm wrong!

The survey found that 73% of Singapore employees were unhappy and 62% of Singaporean employees feeling burnt out. I'm not surprised. If someone works such long hours per week- week after week and has no time for personal development, time for themselves or family or just to get away- they will feel unhappy.

Small Medium Enterprises SMEs in Singapore employ the most number of people in Singapore collectively.

Many of these SMEs believe

- Long hours and working 5 to 5.5 days a week will help them beat competition

- They cannot afford to have staff on leave

- Staff must do multi-tasking

- Staff need to know everything and get things done even if its beyond them

- That they cannot pay higher salaries to their employees.

- That it is perfectly acceptable to call or email employees after working hours.

- Everything is "urgent" and everything is "important"

They may also not have the right HR people in place to advice them or know how to spot burnouts or overwork.