Yorkshire and Humberside workers do £36.9 million of unpaid overtime per week and £1.9 billion throughout a year, according to new findings published by the TUC.

The analysis, published to coincide with the TUC’s ninth annual Work Your Proper Hours Day today, shows that 346,138 workers (16 per cent) in Yorkshire and Humberside are regularly working unpaid hours overtime with the average amount being eight hours per week.

The study of official figures shows that across the UK around one in five workers regularly does more than their contracted hours without getting paid for it.

The analysis shows that teachers and education professionals put in an average of 11 hours of unpaid work per week and in the private sector, research and development managers typically do nine hours of unpaid work, as do those working in construction.

In 2005, the TUC launched Work Your Proper Hours Day – the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime would start to get paid if they did all their unpaid hours at the start of the year – to mark, in a light-hearted way, the extent of unpaid overtime across the UK.

Last year, five million UK workers regularly put in extra hours for free – worth more than £5,600 a year per person to their employer. The 1.8bn hours of unpaid overtime worked across the UK in 2012 added £28.3bn to the economy.

The TUC analysis also shows a sharp rise in unpaid overtime among public-sector employees.

Public-sector job losses are putting an extra strain on the workloads of those still in work, says the TUC, which is likely to lead to more stress and anxiety.

The TUC today urged staff – and their managers – to take a proper lunch break and leave work on time to show that it is possible to work your proper hours without hurting the business.

Yorkshire & Humber policy and campaigns officer Neil Foster said: “These figures show just how committed people are in our region.

“However while many employers expect some additional working the current figures show such a large amount of unpaid overtime can also represent excessive workloads and some management failure.”