What causes (except once in while emergency related) forced overtime work?

An inability to find skilled workers to handle the workload, despite efforts to recruit more workers. That is why a lot of police departments and hospitals and fire departments have mandatory overtime.

In some lines of work, it’s also estimates of how long it will take to do something, being wrong about how long it actually takes for whatever reason, but not wanting to miss the scheduled date to complete something, for various other reasons.

At a company they know it will take 800 hours of labor to complete the week’s worth of work; they only have 16 people.
800/16 equals 50 hours per person therefore 10 hours person of overtime is required.

A company actually saves money by not hiring more employees, which would bare additional benefit costs.

@flo And backlogs in computer entries causing backlogs in filling orders.

Other workers not showing up for their shift.

Equipment failures requiring immediate repair. This can happen quite often

Thanks everyone. But I’m not referring to unexpected incidents. Obviously a nurse can’t abandon the patient/s.
So what do you all think @YARNLADY‘s answer? I mean someone is booked for that period of time, whatever line of work it is.
Also hasn’t been illegal to force people to work more than the 40 hrs/week?

It is not illegal to force someone to work more than forty hours per week, as long as they are compensated appropriately.

@zenvelo Even if they didn’t know that they would be asked to work overtime?
Anyway how about whoever was booked for that period of time didn’t show up. The cause of the problem.

Asking about hourly employees is one thing @flo, salaried (exempt from overtime laws) is another. I worked several years, working more than an 8 hour day, without compensation as a salaried employee.

@flo Even if they did not know until the end of the shift, an employer can require the overtime as long as they meet all the laws on meals and breaks and pay. If the employee refuses, they can be fired.

It depends on the local laws and the employment contract.

Can we address the shift workers?

My son is regularly assigned 4 8-hour days a week, but whenever someone else doesn’t show up, they call on him because he is the best worker they have.

Company policy won’t allow them to make him a full time worker because the benefits that go along with that are too expensive. There are also government incentives to hire more people even when they are only part time, so two part time employees are worth more than one full time.

@flo What do you want to address about shift workers? They aren’t treated differently.

@YARNLADY your son and his company may have broken the law, it is number of hours “clocked” and not how many he was scheduled. I worked for many years as a “casual worker” less than 38 hours a week.

Is it or it not only when someone hasn’t shown up for their shift that there would be a forced overtime if we just talking about shift workers?

@Tropical_Willie Oh, he gets paid for the extra hours, just doesn’t get the “fulltime” benefits.
There might be a case made that he is classified wrong if he routinely works 40 or more hours.
The catch is, he doesn’t want them to limit him to only 32 hours. He needs the money.

I understand @YARNLADY but in some places the “Actual Time Clocked” determines the class of employee; Full-time or Part-time. Labor boards not the company is the controlling factor for Full-time.