Working Hours in Europe - Which Countries Work the Longest?
Lucky nations clock off a whole 12 hours earlier each week Image: REUTERS/Stringer
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
Future of Work
At 35 hours a week, France has the shortest working week in Europe. But this is only in legal terms: in reality, the French work more hours per week than the EU average.
As strikes over reforms to labour laws cause disruption across the country, here’s a look at how many hours workers in EU countries clock up each week.
For the French, the difference between the number of hours required (35) and the number of hours actually worked (37 and a half) is two and a half hours, which is more than the EU average.
It's not France but Greece that tops the list, though, with Greeks working a 42-hour week, according to 2013 OECD data. In Portugal and Spain, people also work longer than the EU average.
Despite a 48-hour weekly limit in the United Kingdom, Brits work less than 37 hours on average. Germans also work relatively short weeks: almost two hours less than the EU average. However, the country was still deemed to be one of the world's most competitive countries in 2015.
Shortest Working Hours in Europe
That goes to the Netherlands, with the Dutch clocking off 12 hours earlier than the Greeks each week. This could be explained by the large number of Dutch people who choose to work part time. In the Netherlands, more than half of all workers are on part-time hours, compared with only a fifth of the working population in the EU.
Have you read?
Is part-time working the key to happiness?
Which countries work the shortest hours – yet still prosper?
Which nations work the longest hours?
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Related topics:
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Geographies in DepthSee all
Andrea Willige
September 26, 2024
Klaus Schwab
September 20, 2024
Sarah Rickwood, Sue Bailey and Daniel Mora-Brito
August 13, 2024
Mthuli Ncube
August 13, 2024
John Letzing
August 12, 2024
Mohamed Elshabik
August 9, 2024