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Danes twice as likely to leave work on time

The Local Denmark
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Danes twice as likely to leave work on time
The clock on the wall says it's time to go home. Photo: Colourbox

The number of employees in Denmark who work overtime is at its lowest level since 2007 and continues to fall.

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Danish workers are twice as likely to leave the office on time than they were before the onset of the financial crisis, an analysis by Avisen.dk shows. 
 
The number of employees working overtime has decreased by 52 percent since 2007, hitting its lowest level since the crisis began. And through the first half of 2014, overtime numbers fell even further.  
 
While that may sound like good news for all of the employees who want to make it home in time for dinner, the Economic Council of the Labour Movement (Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd - ECLM) said it could be a sign that companies have jumped the gun in assuming that the crisis is over. 
 
“The change in attitudes that has occurred could have led the companies to take on too many employees before the recovery has fully kicked in,” ECLM analyst Erik Bjørsted told Avisen.dk.
 
The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), which represents more than one million employees, has a different take on the trend. LO’s chief economist Jan Kæraa Rasmussen said that the decline in overtime work shows that a lacking workforce cannot be blamed for delaying Denmark’s recovery. 
 
“The figures should allay the fears among those few economists who think that the labour market should be a bottleneck,” Rasmussen told Avisen.dk.

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