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Average annual hours worked per country

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Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#21

Post by CalRobert »

betadreamer wrote: post #2

Keep in mind that this is showing the "reported" hours, which can be misleading. For example it shows that people in US works more than Japan but I know for a fact that people in Japan works A LOT more. However, since it is a cultural thing and they expect you to work long hours, no one reports overtime. I even heard that you can get fired if you report it.

Another HNer put this together and I thought it was really interesting with regards to determining real expected working hours vs reported hours.

(Using bikeshare ride data to determine peak hours and length of workday)

http://olivernash.org/2011/02/02/dublin-bikes-revisited/inde...

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#22

Post by phil248 »

ewestern wrote: post #12
WhompingWindows wrote: post #5

Unsurprisingly, USA near the top with 1780 hrs worked annually by the average worker, contrast that with the most hours mexico (2257 hrs) and with the least hours Germany (1356) or the Scandanavians like Denmark and Norway (both around ~1400 hours). This is a poor look for the corporate-centric politics of the USA, which has extremely rich citizens and corporations yet which forces very long hours onto its laborers.…

>> Unsurprisingly, USA near the top with 1780 hrs worked annually by the average worker According to the chart, US workers work < 1% more than the average for OECD countries. There are only two countries that are closer to the average. "Near the top" is not even a close description of this data. Given that your premise is false, how do the rest of your claims follow?

About 90 hours over Canada, Spain, UK and Australia - more than two full work weeks. I'm sure we can all agree that those are better comparisons for the US than Korea, Russia or Poland.

90 hours/year is extremely substantial (some might say life-altering) from the perspective of a working person.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#23

Post by halflings »

ainiriand wrote: post #19
ewestern wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Unsurprisingly, USA near the top with 1780 hrs worked annually by the average worker According to the chart, US workers work < 1% more than the average for OECD countries. There are only two countries that are closer to the average. "Near the top" is not even a close description of this data. Given that your premise is false, how do the rest of your claims follow?

That only shows that you should not give averages, but means. What we can extrapolate from this is that there is some very big factor pushing this up as it occurs with average household income.

> That only shows that you should not give averages, but means.

Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but an average can be a mean, median, or some other summary statistic. Did you mean (wink) median* instead?

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#24

Post by RobertoG »

aserafini wrote: post #16
hmexx wrote: post #14

Funny.. in Europe, Germans are considered hard-working and Greeks typically "lazy". According to these stats, the truth is completely the opposite!

I live and work in Germany but I am not German. I believe the work culture here is: if you are having to work outside core hours, you are ineffective and should have managed your workload better. Consequently I believe there is greater focus on continuously doing the most important task during work rather than occupying oneself with 'busy work' that is prevalent in many other work cultures.

So, if the Greeks work less hours is because they are lazy and if they work more is because they are inefficient.

It seems they can't really win.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#25

Post by isostatic »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #18

There's only 38 countries on here, a large majority of which would be considered "Western." The only thing this is really useful for having first worlders lust after other first world countries with single digit percent differences in work hours Also don't forget a standard 40 work week over a year is 2080 hours, significantly higher than the average.

Most countries have at least 4 weeks holiday, so that would be 1920 hours. In the UK the standard week varies between 35 and 40 hours (9-5 with hour lunch, 9-5.30 with hour lunch, 9-5:30 with half hour lunch), and the 4 weeks is in addition to the 9ish bank holidays, so that's about 1700 hours, and sure enough 1681 is the magic number.

Greece surprised me. They have 20% unemployment, meaning that if they spread the work evenly, rather than having 80 people working 2010 hours, they could have 95 working 1692 hours, same as Canada and Spain. The work is there in Greece, so why isn't it being shared more equally?

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#26

Post by germinalphrase »

hectormalot wrote: post #20
germinalphrase wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

inlove that that is a common arrangement for parents. Do businesses accommodate a reduction in hours to facilitate this? We’re not very accommodating of parenthood here in the US. Medical costs aside, my employer only offers two weeks of paid parental leave after having a child.

In short: yes, many businesses facilitate this. Ironically, Dutch paternity leave is only 2 days (paid), but you’re legally allowed to take something like 26 weeks unpaid in the first few years as parental leave. (Vs e.g. Sweden with 6-9 months). The law is changing to a few weeks next year I believe. I think it differs by employer. Mine gives extra days paid leave for parents as they consider the 2 days too short (b…

Two weeks is common in the US; however, it tends to be all-or-nothing with regard to hours.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#27

Post by whorleater »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #18

There's only 38 countries on here, a large majority of which would be considered "Western." The only thing this is really useful for having first worlders lust after other first world countries with single digit percent differences in work hours Also don't forget a standard 40 work week over a year is 2080 hours, significantly higher than the average.

>There's only 38 countries on here

It's from the OCED, which is literally a club of rich (mostly) first world countries.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#28

Post by kuerbel »

aserafini wrote: post #16
hmexx wrote: post #14

Funny.. in Europe, Germans are considered hard-working and Greeks typically "lazy". According to these stats, the truth is completely the opposite!

I live and work in Germany but I am not German. I believe the work culture here is: if you are having to work outside core hours, you are ineffective and should have managed your workload better. Consequently I believe there is greater focus on continuously doing the most important task during work rather than occupying oneself with 'busy work' that is prevalent in many other work cultures.

I live in Germany as well (I'm Swiss), and people usually get free time in exchange for overtime and not money around here. I think that explains it better, because overtime is pretty prevalent - at least in some jobs. Others not so much. You usually don't have to work more than your usual 8 hours/day in a super market. As a software engineer however...

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#29

Post by downrightmike »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #5

Unsurprisingly, USA near the top with 1780 hrs worked annually by the average worker, contrast that with the most hours mexico (2257 hrs) and with the least hours Germany (1356) or the Scandanavians like Denmark and Norway (both around ~1400 hours). This is a poor look for the corporate-centric politics of the USA, which has extremely rich citizens and corporations yet which forces very long hours onto its laborers.…

Mexico is about 2250 avg and Greece @ about 2100 avg.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#30

Post by RobertoG »

kuerbel wrote: post #28
aserafini wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live and work in Germany but I am not German. I believe the work culture here is: if you are having to work outside core hours, you are ineffective and should have managed your workload better. Consequently I believe there is greater focus on continuously doing the most important task during work rather than occupying oneself with 'busy work' that is prevalent in many other work cultures.

I live in Germany as well (I'm Swiss), and people usually get free time in exchange for overtime and not money around here. I think that explains it better, because overtime is pretty prevalent - at least in some jobs. Others not so much. You usually don't have to work more than your usual 8 hours/day in a super market. As a software engineer however...

I don't know why is necessary to explain anything. Maybe the explanation is that the Germans work less hours.

It would be logic, a richer country, a better life. Is that shameful or something?

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