8 European Countries Curb After-Hours Work Contact as 1 in 5 EU Staff Face It Monthly
Updated
Updated · Euronews · Aug 3
8 European Countries Curb After-Hours Work Contact as 1 in 5 EU Staff Face It Monthly
3 articles · Updated · Euronews · Aug 3
Summary
France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Luxembourg have rolled out laws, labor rules or workplace codes to limit after-hours work contact and protect employees’ right to rest.
1 in 5 EU workers say they are contacted for work many times a month outside normal hours, while 59% report frequent stress; among workers never contacted after hours, that figure drops to 17%.
Remote and flexible work are intensifying the problem: 63% of teleworkers and 64% of staff with flexible schedules report out-of-hours contact, versus 48% and 49% for office-based and standard-schedule workers.
The UK has no standalone right-to-disconnect law, even as 3.5 million workers regularly did unpaid overtime worth £28.5 billion and 92% say they struggle to mentally switch off.
Enforcement remains uneven across Europe because national rules differ, some protections apply only to larger employers, and fear of seeming less committed keeps many workers responding anyway.