The loss of almost one million full-time jobs and a shift to part-time working since the start of the recession has resulted in a drop of almost 10% in the number of UK staff working more than 45 hours per week, according to research published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The recession has resulted in both a fall in total employment (down by a net 580,000, 2%, in the two years to spring 2010) and a shift from full-time employment (which has fallen 4.1%) to part-time employment, which has increased by 4.4%.
A marked shift to shorter working hours has been one of the key characteristics of the recession

This shift is to some extent due to many people working shorter hours to help their employers cut labour costs and thereby minimise redundancies. The combined impact of these changes is a net fall of 32.7 million in the number of hours worked each week in the UK.

However, total hours have since started to rise again, indicating a modest, though uneven, pick-up in demand for labour since mid-2009.

"A marked shift to shorter working hours has been one of the key characteristics of the recession. But signs of an increase in long-hours working since the trough in hours in summer 2009 suggest that the fall in working time during the jobs downturn was a forced detox for Britain's workaholics, most of whom will be eager to start putting in the hours again once the economic recovery gathers steam," said Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the CIPD.

"HR managers mindful of the importance of a sensible work-life balance will need to determine whether a return to long hours working is the best outcome for staff or the organisations that employ them."