Men work harder of women, Bulgaria is at first place with smallest difference – only half an hour
People in rich EU countries are found to work less but earn more than those in poorer ones. This is shown by Eurostat data. According to them, the shortest working week is in the Netherlands – only 32.4 hours, which makes it less than 7 hours a day. This is followed by Austria, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Belgium. An average of 33.7 to 34.9 hours is worked there per week.
People living in the Balkans are found to have the longest working week. According to European statistics, in 2022 in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, the working week is around and a little over 40 hours. The situation is the same in Poland and Portugal. And outside the EU, Turks work the most – nearly 43 hours a week. In Great Britain, they are not among the most hard-working – 36.4 hours. The working week in France, Italy, Spain is also in this range.
Working hours are mainly influenced by the type of employment – where there are more people working part-time, they report fewer hours.
There are big differences and between the sexes
– men have a longer average working week than women in all countries in 2022. This is most visible in the Netherlands and Switzerland – 8.5 and 9.7 hours respectively. It turns out that Bulgaria is in first place because men work only 0.5 hours more than women. The average difference in the EU is 5.1 hours.
For men, the shortest average working week was in the Netherlands and Norway – 36.4 hours each, while the longest was in Turkey – 44.8. The EU average was 38.4 hours, and men in Greece had the most working hours at 41.7.
Among women, those in Montenegro work the most (41.7 hours) compared to the EU average of 33.6 hours. In the Netherlands, women are the least engaged in work – 27.9 hours, and in Romania they work the most – as many as 39.3 hours.
The collected statistics show that work patterns are changing in recent years because the percentage of people working from home is increasing in the EU as a consequence of the anti-epidemic measures. This can bring significant losses to the owners of office properties. Telecommuting could wipe $800 billion from the value of business buildings in major cities around the world, Bloomberg reported.
The four-day work week more and more is spreading
in European countries. Belgium became the first country in Europe to introduce it by law. In February 2022, employees there were given the right to work 4 days a week without losing their wages.
Portugal joined the list. As part of a government-funded pilot project announced in early June, 39 private companies have signed up to the initiative in partnership with non-profit advocacy group 4 Day Week Global.
UK companies which ran a six-month trial of the 4-day working week are now planning to make the shorter working week permanent after describing the experiment as “hugely successful”.
After the small left-wing Mas Pai party announced last year that the government had agreed to a request to start a four-day work week program, Spain launched a pilot project in December.
Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland ran the world’s largest project with a 35-36 hour work week without any calls for a commensurate pay cut. In Sweden, a 4-day week with full pay was tested in 2015 with mixed results.
The proposal was to try a 6 instead of 8 hour work day, without loss of pay, but not everyone was happy with the idea.
2023-07-17 18:40:00
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