Be it increased flexibility or productivity paranoia, more of us are working on weekends

The near-constant forecasts of a recession, regular headlines about layoffs in the tech sector and the general evolution of remote work have all started to cut into that most sacred of weekly treasures: the weekend. According to productivity software company ActivTrak, at least, which clocked a five per cent increase in the number of hours worked on the weekend.

That may be small, but under the hood the data tells a more interesting story. Industries like tech and media, which have been hit hardest by layoffs in recent months, saw spikes of 30 per cent and 53 per cent more hours worked on the weekend in 2022, respectively.

“The reasons are twofold,” writes Bloomberg’s Matthew Boyle. “Job cuts that have heaped more work on fewer staffers, along with a need to escape the constant interruptions from the likes of Zoom calls and Slack chats that are part of today’s increasingly hybrid workforce.”

The first factor makes some intuitive sense. “Unlike the Great Resignation, finding a white-collar job is more challenging now,” writes Forbes’ Jack Kelly. “You don’t want to be the person that is let go. To avoid this fate, people are working harder and longer hours.”

The second is more interesting. Remote work acolytes often talked up remote work precisely because of the lack of office distractions. Your home office was supposed to be a sanctuary. But, possibly due to the rising number of notifications, digital check-ins, Slack messages and bings and bobs coming from your laptop, remote workers have been pushed to find ways to make remote work more remote, somehow. And in the end, isn’t this what a newfound sense of flexibility was meant for?

“As people become more comfortable with flexibility,” says ActivTrak’s VP Gabriela Mauch, “it’s acceptable to log off at 3 p.m. on a Friday and deal with the work on the weekend.”

Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.