agency saysĪt the global level, the ILO report argues that far too many people are working excessively long hours, even though average working hours in many developed countries have been trending downward. It’s also important to note that the report may not exactly reflect the current situation because the study uses pre-pandemic data. The comparison only includes four developing countries, the last being Brazil, where employees work less than they do in America. The other regions of the world lie somewhere between these two extremes.' 'In contrast, the shortest average hours of work per week are found in North America and Europe and Central Asia, particularly in Northern, Southern and Western Europe. 'Average hours of work per week were clearly the longest in Asia and the Pacific, particularly in Southern Asia and Eastern Asia,' the report says. Overall, work-life balance is best in Europe and North America. Hawaii Alaska Florida South Carolina Georgia Alabama North Carolina Tennessee RI Rhode Island CT Connecticut MA Massachusetts Maine NH New Hampshire VT Vermont New York NJ New Jersey DE Delaware MD Maryland West Virginia Ohio Michigan Arizona Nevada Utah Colorado New Mexico South Dakota Iowa Indiana Illinois Minnesota Wisconsin Missouri Louisiana Virginia DC Washington DC Idaho California North Dakota Washington Oregon Montana Wyoming Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Pennsylvania Kentucky Mississippi Arkansas Texas GET STARTED In China and India, average working hours are above 2,100 per year, and those numbers have increased in the past five decades, which is not the case for any of the other countries in the study.

classifies as developing, including China, India, Republic of Korea, work more than Americans. However, the study shows employees in several major countries the U.N. is working 400 more hours annually - the equivalent of 10 more weeks - than employees in Germany. Even so, the average 40-hour-per-week employee in the U.S. That figure has declined over time: In the ‘50’s and ‘60s, average working hours per year were closer to 2,000 in the U.S., according to the report. In the U.S., workers clock an average of about 1,750 hours per year, the ILO report shows. Of these countries, Germans work the least - a total of about 1,350 hours per year, on average. than in six developed countries used in the study’s comparison: Australia, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium, France and Germany.įor much of the 21st century, Australians worked more than Americans, but that switched several years ago. agency, finds that the average number of working hours per year was higher in the U.S. workers typically put in 400 more hours on the job every year compared to our counterparts in Germany.Ī new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO), which is a U.N. American workers spend more time on the clock than employees in other developed countries, and it adds up: U.S.

Work hours per year