The Real Cost of Maintenance Overtime (2026)

By the editors at Reliable. Last updated October 7, 2026.

How We Evaluated

Independent editorial analysis based on publicly available government data, peer-reviewed research, and the original pages behind widely quoted benchmarks.

Reliable Magazine does not sell scheduling software, staffing services, or consulting and has no commercial interest in routing readers toward any particular vendor. Reliable does not accept payment for rankings. Vendors may sponsor enhanced listings with additional detail, but editorial rankings are independent. Read our editorial policy.

We sorted every figure into three tiers and kept the tiers apart:

• Government sources: the Department of Labor for the overtime rule, BLS for hours and compensation, OSHA and NIOSH for fatigue and injury, and Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) guidance for maintenance strategy.
• Research: two peer-reviewed injury studies, one peer-reviewed productivity study, and one discussion paper later published in a journal.
• Vendor and association material: UpKeep, a CMMS vendor, with its commercial stake stated at each use, and the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP).

Three rules applied throughout. Each figure stays tied to the population and year of its study. Nothing is summed across studies. A figure appears only if a named source page prints it, and our own arithmetic is labeled as arithmetic.

What the Law Requires

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets the federal floor. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #23 states that covered, nonexempt employees must receive at least time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek.

Three details in the fact sheet matter for maintenance budgets:

• The Act places no limit on the number of hours employees aged 16 and older may work in a workweek.
• The regular rate includes all remuneration for employment except payments the Act specifically excludes. The premium can therefore apply to more than the base hourly wage.
• The Act does not require overtime pay for Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays as such.

Double time, weekend premiums, and call-in minimums, where a plant pays them, come from state law, union contracts, or company policy.

How Much Overtime Manufacturing Works

BLS has published overtime hours for manufacturing since 1956. The series covers production and nonsupervisory employees, a group that BLS defines to include maintenance and repair workers. It does not separate maintenance crews from the rest.

The BLS summary of the 2025 data reports:

• Manufacturing averaged 3.8 overtime hours per week in 2025, up from 3.6 hours in 2023 and 2024.
• The average reached 4.6 hours in 2018.
• Durable goods averaged 3.7 hours and nondurable goods 3.8 hours in 2025.
• Transportation equipment manufacturing averaged 5.3 hours. Machinery manufacturing averaged 2.5 hours.

For the maintenance trades, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook gives a description and no number. It says overtime is common for industrial machinery mechanics, machinery maintenance workers, and millwrights, particularly for mechanics, who may be on call and work night or weekend shifts. The page lists a median annual wage of $64,100 for the group in May 2025.

What an Overtime Hour Costs on Paper

The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) series reports what employers pay per hour worked. For installation, maintenance, and repair occupations in manufacturing, the June 2026 figures are:

Time and one-half on the $34.53 average wage is $51.80. That is illustrative arithmetic. BLS publishes no estimate of an overtime hour’s employer cost. The $51.80 excludes employer payroll taxes and any benefit costs triggered by the additional pay or hours.

The $51.94 figure is average total compensation across hours worked, including benefits and supplemental pay.

These figures alone do not establish whether overtime is cheaper than hiring. That decision requires the plant’s actual overtime costs, hiring and training costs, benefit rules, expected workload, and usable working hours.

Two other ECEC figures give scale:

• Across all private industry, overtime and premium pay averaged $0.45 per hour worked in June 2026, or 1.0% of compensation.
• In manufacturing, supplemental pay as a whole averaged $2.62 per hour worked, or 5.4% of compensation. The release table does not break out overtime alone for manufacturing.

The Injury Evidence

Overtime schedules across all occupations (2005)

Dembe and colleagues analyzed responses from 10,793 Americans in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, covering job histories from 1987 to 2000. The study appeared in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Its outcome is a reported work-related injury or illness.

After adjusting for age, gender, occupation, industry, and region, the authors report:

• Overtime schedules were associated with a 61% higher hazard of reported occupational injury or illness, compared with jobs without overtime.
• Working at least 12 hours per day was associated with a 37% increased hazard rate.
• Working at least 60 hours per week was associated with a 23% increased hazard rate.

The authors also report a dose-response pattern, with injury rates rising as the hours in a worker’s customary schedule increased.

Hourly manufacturing workers (2007)

Vegso and colleagues used a case-crossover design that compared the hours each worker logged before an injury shift with the hours the same worker logged before a non-injury shift. The study appeared in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Workers who logged more than 64 hours in the week before a shift had an 88% excess risk of injury compared with those who logged 40 hours or fewer. The abstract concludes that control of overtime in manufacturing may reduce the risk of worker injury.

OSHA and NIOSH summaries

OSHA’s worker fatigue page reports that accident and injury rates are 18% greater during evening shifts and 30% greater during night shifts than during day shifts. It also repeats the 37% figure for 12-hour days.

NIOSH reviewed 52 research reports on long working hours in 2004 (Publication 2004-143). Its summary reports that overtime was associated with poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates, more illnesses, or increased mortality in 16 of the 22 studies that addressed general health effects.

NIOSH states that it summarized findings as the original authors reported them and did not evaluate the studies for quality.

The Productivity Evidence

U.S. manufacturing industries (2000)

Shepard and Clifton studied aggregate data for 18 U.S. manufacturing industries from 1956 to 1991. Their abstract in the International Journal of Manpower reports that the use of overtime hours lowered average productivity, measured as output per worker hour, for almost all of the industries in the sample.

Munition workers (2014)

Stanford economist John Pencavel analyzed output records for British munition workers in the First World War. His discussion paper was later published in The Economic Journal.

The abstract describes a nonlinear relationship. Below a threshold of hours, output was proportional to hours. Above it, output rose at a decreasing rate.

For four groups of munition workers, Pencavel’s fitted model indicated diminishing output gains above 49 weekly hours. Estimated weekly output at 70 hours was close to that at 56 hours. These results do not establish a working-hour threshold for today’s maintenance crews.

Why Reactive Work Drives Overtime

Federal maintenance guidance ties overtime to maintenance strategy. FEMP’s O&M Best Practices Guide (Release 3.0, 2010), prepared by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, lists higher labor cost, particularly when overtime is needed, among the disadvantages of a reactive maintenance approach.

The same discussion notes that when a critical piece of equipment must return to service quickly, the plant pays maintenance overtime.

The reactive maintenance discussion gives no dollar figure. The guide does list overtime worked among the metrics for evaluating an O&M program, and its benchmark table, covered in the next section, sets a target.

The 5% Benchmark

Federal guidance publishes a maintenance overtime benchmark. FEMP’s 2010 guide (Table 3.1.1) lists a target below 5%, calculated as maintenance overtime hours divided by regular maintenance hours.

The guide presents the table as industry benchmarks and credits NASA (2000) as its source. It does not describe how the values were measured.

This historical target does not establish a current national average or an optimum for every maintenance crew.

The number also circulates with a different denominator. UpKeep, a CMMS vendor, suggests less than 5% measured against total maintenance time. Its page supplies no supporting dataset of its own.

The two formulas give different answers. As an example, 2 overtime hours on 40 regular hours is 5% of regular hours and 4.76% of the 42 total hours.

Specify the source, denominator, and reporting period before comparing a plant’s results with a benchmark.

SMRP’s Best Practices document covers 70+ metrics and guidelines, with formulas and best-in-class target values. It is distributed to members, and we did not inspect its overtime entry.

At a Glance

Honest Limitations

• No separate maintenance overtime estimate. The BLS sources reviewed do not provide a separate national estimate of overtime hours or overtime cost for maintenance crews. BLS overtime hours cover manufacturing production and nonsupervisory employees as one group, and this guide does not estimate a maintenance share.
• The $51.80 figure is wage-only arithmetic. It applies time and one-half to a national average wage for an occupation group and excludes employer payroll taxes and benefit costs. A plant’s wage scale, benefit plan, and premium rules will produce a different result.
• The injury studies show association. Dembe and colleagues adjusted for occupation and industry, and the design is still observational. Its outcome combines reported injury and illness, and its data cover 1987 to 2000 and all occupations.
• The manufacturing injury finding rests on one study. We reviewed the abstract of Vegso and colleagues, which does not describe the employer or the trades involved.
• NIOSH did not grade the studies it reviewed. Its 2004 report summarizes findings as the original authors stated them.
• The productivity evidence is old or indirect. Shepard and Clifton used industry-level data ending in 1991. Pencavel’s results are fitted estimates for four groups of munition workers a century ago, many of them paid by the piece. Maintenance work is diagnostic and nonroutine, and neither dataset measures it.
• The 5% benchmark is a historical target. FEMP’s 2010 table credits a 2000 NASA source and does not describe the measurement behind it. Benchmarks that divide by total hours are not directly comparable with it.
• No total is constructed. This guide does not combine wage, injury, and productivity figures into a single cost per overtime hour.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does maintenance overtime cost?

The BLS sources reviewed do not provide a separate national estimate of overtime cost for maintenance crews. For covered, nonexempt employees, the FLSA generally requires at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. BLS data for June 2026 puts the average wage for installation, maintenance, and repair occupations in manufacturing at $34.53 per hour worked, which makes time and one-half $51.80 before employer payroll taxes and benefit costs. The injury and output associations found in research are not captured in that figure.

What is the legal overtime rate for maintenance technicians?

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, covered, nonexempt employees must receive at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The Act sets no limit on weekly hours for employees aged 16 and older and does not require premium pay for weekends or holidays as such. State law, union contracts, and company policy can add to the federal floor.

How much overtime do manufacturing workers average?

BLS reports that production and nonsupervisory employees in manufacturing averaged 3.8 overtime hours per week in 2025, compared with 3.6 hours in 2023 and 2024 and 4.6 hours in 2018. Transportation equipment manufacturing averaged 5.3 hours and machinery manufacturing 2.5 hours. BLS does not publish a separate figure for maintenance crews.

Does overtime increase injury risk?

The studies reviewed here found associations between overtime or long hours and higher injury risk. They do not establish how much overtime changes risk for maintenance technicians. A 2005 study of 10,793 U.S. workers associated overtime schedules with a 61% higher hazard of reported occupational injury or illness after adjusting for age, gender, occupation, industry, and region. A 2007 study of hourly manufacturing workers found an 88% excess injury risk after a week of more than 64 hours compared with 40 hours or fewer.

Is overtime cheaper than hiring another technician?

The BLS figures alone do not establish that. Time and one-half on the $34.53 average wage for maintenance occupations in manufacturing is $51.80, which excludes employer payroll taxes and any added benefit costs. The $51.94 BLS figure is average total compensation across hours worked, including benefits and supplemental pay. The decision requires the plant’s actual overtime costs, hiring and training costs, benefit rules, expected workload, and usable working hours.

What is a good benchmark for maintenance overtime?

FEMP’s 2010 O&M Best Practices Guide lists a target below 5%, calculated as maintenance overtime hours divided by regular maintenance hours, and credits NASA (2000) as its source. UpKeep, a CMMS vendor, suggests less than 5% of total maintenance time, a different denominator. These historical targets do not establish a current national average or an optimum for every crew. Specify the source, denominator, and reporting period before comparing a plant’s results with a benchmark.

Related Guides

• Maintenance and Reliability KPI Reference
• Deferred Maintenance Backlog Statistics
• OSHA Most-Cited Maintenance Violations
• Maintenance and Reliability Glossary
• Best CMMS Software

Sources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (news release tables; the overtime hours and occupational outlook pages are linked in the text).
• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA (federal overtime rule).
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Long Work Hours, Extended or Irregular Shifts, and Worker Fatigue (hazards page).
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Overtime and Extended Work Shifts: Recent Findings on Illnesses, Injuries and Health Behaviors (Publication 2004-143; review of 52 reports).
• U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Management Program. Operations & Maintenance Best Practices: A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency, Release 3.0 (August 2010; Table 3.1.1 on printed page 3.5, and Chapter 5).
• Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The impact of overtime and long work hours on occupational injuries and illnesses (Dembe et al., 2005).
• American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Extended work hours and risk of acute occupational injury (Vegso et al., 2007).
• International Journal of Manpower. Are longer hours reducing productivity in manufacturing? (Shepard and Clifton, 2000; abstract).
• IZA Institute of Labor Economics. The Productivity of Working Hours (Pencavel, Discussion Paper 8129, 2014).
• Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals. Best Practices, Metrics & Guidelines (public summary; member document not inspected).
• UpKeep. What are the Best KPIs to Track the Performance of my Maintenance Team? (CMMS vendor page; less than 5% of total maintenance time).