We’re working harder than ever and struggling to find enough time for leisure activities, according to a survey by Randstad.

The organisation’s quarterly workmonitor survey has discovered that about 67% of the UK’s workforce, including umbrella company contractors, think their workload increased in Q2 and 40% of employees are finding it harder than ever to organise time off.

Workers are also finding it increasingly hard to switch off even when they’re not at work. Nearly 50% think a lot about work when they’re on holiday and 43% get emails and questions from their colleagues while they’re away. More than 60% find that they are even busier when they get back from a break as the work has piled up in their absence.

However, the survey did discover that working longer hours makes us feel better! 65% of people working over 40 hours per week said they were satisfied whilst only 55% of those working between 25 and 32 hours felt the same way.

Hardly surprisingly, more than a third of public sector workers are now worried about redundancy compared to 29% in the previous survey and yet private sector employees are still more concerned about the possibility of losing their jobs and having to find alternative employment.

Concerns about age discrimination are highest in the 18 to 24 age bracket with nearly 50% of young employees worried about job security, whilst almost 9 out of 10 employees aged over 55 would like to get a new job but are less confident in their ability to secure one compared to younger people.

The CIPD reported recently that more than over half a million jobs have been lost in the past couple of years. Full-time employment dropped by nearly a million but part-time vacancies increased by 330,000. The trend for part-time working does seem to be continuing and there are now as many employees putting in 16 to 30 hours per week as were working more than 45 before the recession took hold, the Institute’s chief economic adviser said.

© 2010 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Image: y2.d46 | long. tired. by B Rosen

Small businesses in the UK are spending too much time complying with red tape and government bureaucracy, according to a new report by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

The BCC has found that SMEs, which include limited company contractors, recruiters and umbrella companies, spent a total of £88.3 billion on their statutory compliance activities last year. This represents a rise of almost 15% on the previous year’s figures.

Right to work legislation, IR35, Health and Safety, PAYE, Age Discrimination and so on are hampering UK businesses, all of which should be focusing on their bottom line, not worrying whether they fall foul of the next government white paper.

Commenting on the findings of the report, a spokesperson from the Centre for Retail Research said that there are around 300 modes of inconvenient red tape that should be replaced or at the very least reviewed as a matter of urgency.

What is clear, is that the outgoing Labour government did not exactly endear themselves to the small business community. The scrapped rise in National Insurance Contributions has already been welcomed by several leading SME lobby groups, and business owners across the country now await the emergency Budget with renewed optimism for change.

© 2010 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Image: If I Were A Joke by enggul