Labor Injustice and Economic Vulnerability: A Quantitative Analysis of Work Scheduling Practices in a South African Janitorial Services Company

This study investigates the phenomenon of "negative hours"—when employees work less than their contracted hours or experience unpaid time—within a large South African janitorial services company. Despite its economic importance and the challenges its workforce faces, the cleaning services industry remains understudied, particularly in terms of work-hour arrangements and their impacts on employees. A quantitative approach was employed to fill this void, utilizing a dataset of 10,915 employees to analyze the prevalence and patterns of negative hours, their demographic distribution, and their impact on compensation. Descriptive statistics revealed that 8.85% of all compensation records exhibited negative hours, with significant disparities across gender, race, and regional locations. Black African females were disproportionately affected. Further analysis showed a weak positive correlation between work hours and compensation, suggesting that employees experiencing negative hours were more vulnerable to income instability. The findings highlight the unequal distribution of negative hours and their financial impact, offering valuable insights into labor precarity in South Africa's cleaning services industry. This study contributes to the growing body of research on precarious work and informs policy discussions on improving labor practices in low-wage sectors.