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New Working Time Regulations, effective from 6 April 2003, further limit the hours which may be worked by young people (those over compulsory school age but not yet 18).

First, total working time is limited to 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week (counting from Sunday to Saturday). This means, for example, that the scope for asking a young person to work overtime will be very limited. If the young person has more than one job, even with separate employers, the working hours have to be amalgamated.

Second, night working between 10pm and 6am is prohibited (or, if the employee’s contract requires him to work after 10pm, between 11pm and 7am).

The Regulations do allow for exceptions, where working longer or later hours is necessary ‘to maintain continuity of service or production or to respond to a surge in demand’ but it is not at all clear from the Eurospeak in which the Regulations are written whether this allows longer or later working as a matter of course, or only to cover for situations which could not reasonably have been foreseen. We would advise employers who want to take advantage of any of the exceptions to take specialist legal advice.