Over Employment,

Unemployment,
Underemployment and
Overtime…

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Over employment, Unemployment,
Underemployment and Overtime…
• Over employment refers to a situation where
workers are willing but unable at their current
jobs to reduce the amount of time they devote
to earning an income. Many people go through
a spell at some point when they would prefer
shorter work hours. They are prepared to
sacrifice income to attain it in order to avoid
the more costly step of leaving an occupation
or withdrawing from the labor force entirely."
(Golden L. 2003)
• Over employment is another dimension which refers to those who work
long hours in jobs which provide very low earnings and productivity.
• Another is Soft employment which refers to less “decent” employment or
those jobs which provides no security of tenure, no social security benefits and
very limited rights for workers both in terms of participation in decision
making and the rights to organized.
• Apart from unemployment is its “halo” such as the problems of (1) child labor,
statistics of which are not captured in the labor force survey, (2) old age
without pension and (3) female workers with young children.
• Overtime refers to working hours beyond some
standard or norm. For employees on payrolls,
this standard is widely considered 40 hours/
week, embodying the spirit of the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) standard workweek.”
(Golden)
• Labor Code of the Philippines defines
Overtime as work performed beyond an
employee's regular duty hours of 8 hours in a
day (Art. 87, Labor Code), while regular hour is
the whole time when an employee is required to
be on duty in his workstation not exceeding 8
hours per day (Art. 84, Labor Code)
On Overtime Pay…

• Art. 88 prohibits the offsetting of under

time by rendering overtime, or vice versa.
That rule only allows the employer to
deduct the under time to the employee's
accrued leave, or to hours regularly
performed on that day, but does not
exempt an employer from paying
overtime pay on same day.
 Unemployment…

• Unemployment is defined as the total lack of

work at a given point in time. It is a situation
of those persons who want work and are able
to take suitable jobs but cannot find them.
Unemployment complements the
measurement of employment. The two
concepts together make up the country’s
labor force or supply of labor.
 Unemployment…

• The existing international standard

measurement of unemployment is embodied
in Resolution Concerning Statistics of the
Economically Active Population,
Employment, Unemployment and
Underemployment that was adopted during
the 13th International Conference of Labor
Statisticians (ICLS) held at Geneva
Switzerland in 1982.
• The Resolution defines the “unemployed” to
comprise all persons above a specified age who
satisfied simultaneously the following three criteria:
a). “Without work”, i.e., were not in paid
employment or self-employment as specified by the
international definition of employment;
b). “Currently available for work”, i.e., were
available for paid employment or self-employment
during the reference period; and
(c). “Seeking work”, i.e., had taken specific steps in
a specified recent period to seek paid employment
or self-employment.
• The Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the
Philippines defines the unemployed
persons as all those who during the
reference period are 15 years old and over as
of their last birthday who have no jobs/businesses
and are actively looking for work, as well as those
persons (partial relaxation) without jobs or
businesses who are reported not looking for work
because of their belief that no work was available
or because of temporary illness/disability, bad
weather, pending job application or waiting for job
recall.
Underemployment…
• A situation in which a worker is employed,
but not in the desired capacity, whether in
terms of compensation, hours, or level of
skill and experience. While not technically
unemployed, the underemployed are often
competing for available jobs.
• In the Philippines, the rising incidence of
underemployment is considered a more
serious problem than unemployment since
underemployment rate is usually higher or
twice the unemployment rate. While
unemployment is usually a problem among
youth (with an average rate of 17.0%),
underemployment cuts across age groups and
affects more the less educated workers and
heads of families.