Alessia Montanaro is about to close her second intense season of the year. Since September he has been logging up to 60 hours of work a week, sometimes until 11 p.m., and is in the habit of working from his home office on Sundays. The 30-year-old works in public accounting in Austin, Texas, and has gotten used to these rushes around tax season. She’s not the only weekend work warrior. For many office workers, Sundays have become the unofficial new start to their work week: Nearly half of workers typically clock in on Sundays, according to a recent report from Owl Labs, the video conferencing technology company, which surveyed 2,000 people in July with a margin of error of 2%. About 21% of respondents say they work all day or almost all day, and another 24% say they often work a few hours. Of the remaining group of workers, 11% say they quickly check messages but don’t actually work, 18% say they rarely work on Sundays, and 26% say they never do. It’s been six years since work for many moved home during the Covid-19 pandemic, opening up the ability to log hours anytime, anywhere there is Wi-Fi. While some people deprioritized work and set strict boundaries to protect their personal time, data on technology use shows that many years later, work time has extended to every hour of every day. Chat messages sent outside the standard Monday-Friday 9am-5pm during the work week increased 15% year-over-year, now up to an average of 58 messages per user, according to Microsoft’s 2025 research into what it calls the rise of the “infinite workday.” Among those who work weekends, nearly 20% check their email before noon on Saturdays and Sundays, and more than 5% are in their inboxes on Sunday nights, according to Microsoft. As these online habits show, the sanctity of Sundays off may be disappearing as an always-on work culture takes over. During the work week, “I feel pulled in five different directions” with messages or requests from associates and superiors, says Austin’s Montanaro. Working on a Sunday without distractions can help workers get more done, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs. But it can also be a sign that the typical Monday through Friday is overloaded with work. The task of getting work done can be disruptive: Employees are interrupted about every two minutes during core work hours with meetings, emails or chat messages, according to Microsoft data. About 38% of workers say they have meeting fatigue, and the most common complaint is that meetings are too long and there are too many of them, according to Owl Labs. Workers seek flexibility where they can. Weishaupt says Sunday work periods could be seen as a good thing “as it relates to an employee’s desire for flexibility” and a growing interest in “microshifts,” a term Owl Labs coined to mean working outside the traditional 9-to-5 weekday time block. It can be especially helpful for moms, caregivers, and anyone who needs to get away for a few hours on weekdays. Kylie Gonzalez, 29, says she will enter her account manager job from home on a Sunday if she takes time during the week for doctor’s appointments, picking up her kids from school or other events. But she is cautious about spending more than an hour working on the weekend, or making it a habit. “Some companies may take advantage of that fact and add more to their plate because they see a lot being done,” he says. Work anxiety fuels Sunday fears. In 2019, the norm was to go to the office on a Monday and prepare for the following week, says Weishaupt. That prep work is now moving to Sundays. “My Sunday night feels terrible because I’m only thinking about Monday and all the work I didn’t finish on Friday,” says Tobi Collins, 28, a strategy consultant in Dallas. Her weekend job helps her manage Sunday fears, she says: “If I get ahead of myself, I’m not as nervous about the week.” Dina Otero, 42, of Philadelphia, says she used to regularly log weekend hours, and even spent Sundays after vacation catching up on emails before returning to work. Working a little harder at the beginning of the week would help her get ahead, she told herself. In reality, it was just anxiety and “my own way of thinking that I had control over things that I didn’t really have,” he says. In today’s tough job market, when companies are announcing layoffs before they happen, hiring less and raising expectations around artificial intelligence, Weishaupt says Sunday work could also be a sign of overwork when people are worried about job security. Workers are “doing their best to embrace that work, and that may mean they’re just working a lot more, Sunday included,” he says. That can become a big problem if not controlled. “If 40 hours turns into 60 hours, you know you’re going to burn out, you’re going to get frustrated, and then when the pendulum swings the other direction, you’re going to have a lot of churn,” Weishaupt says. LaToya Allen, 45, in Washington, D.C., isn’t sure that extra hours of work are always worth it. He found himself in a cycle of burnout and abandonment in 2020, when he became disillusioned with his corporate technology job and what he saw as a false promise of success and security. He now runs his own boutique technology consultancy and says working “pretty much seven days a week” comes with the territory of entrepreneurship. However, for 9-to-5 workers, “I don’t see how working on a Sunday is going to save jobs,” he says. “Just because your manager sees you working on Slack on a Sunday, what does it matter?” Take control of your money with CNBC Select CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn commission from affiliate partners through links.
