General overview
In the EU, in 2022, people aged 20-64 years in employment worked 37.5 hours on average per week. This number refers to the hours people usually worked in their main job (see methodological notes for the difference between actual and usual working hours).
The average usual working hours per week differ between EU countries (see Map 1). Those with the longest working week were Greece (41.0 hours), Poland (40.4 hours), Romania and Bulgaria (40.2 hours for both).
By contrast, the Netherlands had the shortest average working week (33.2 hours), followed by Germany (35.3 hours) and Denmark (35.4 hours). The EFTA country Norway also stands out with a short working week (35.5 hours).
The average working hours presented in Map 1 include both full-time and part-time workers. Consequently, the different shares of part-time workers across countries influence the results, in addition to the different legal and usual length of the working week.
Countries with a high share of part-time workers report a shorter usual working week on average for the total number of people employed. Figure 1 shows a strong negative correlation between these two indicators.
Source: Eurostat (lfsi_pt_a) and (lfsa_ewhun2)
Employed people by length of the average usual working week
In the EU, in 2022, 5.4 % of employed people worked on average less than 20 hours per week (see Figure 2). 7.6 % had an average usual working week of 50 hours or over. The largest share (46.8 %) at EU level was for those with an average working week of 40 to 44 hours followed by those who worked 35 to 39 hours (21.5 %). Much smaller shares of the employed people worked on average per week from 20 to 24 hours (5.1 %), 25 to 29 hours (2.9 %), 30 to 34 hours (5.8 %) and 45 to 49 hours (5.0 %).
Source: Eurostat (ad hoc extraction and (lfsa_qoe_3a4)
The largest share in most EU Member States (22 countries) was for people with an average working week of 40 to 44 hours. This share exceeded 50 % in 17 EU countries and reached more than 80 % in Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia and Poland.
In Denmark, France, Finland, Belgium and Ireland, the largest group was those who worked on average 35 to 39 hours per week, with the share of these people in Denmark exceeding 50 %.
Looking at people who had the longest working week (50 hours or more), the largest shares were found in Greece (13.2 %) and France (10.4 %).
By contrast, in the Netherlands, 45.6 % of the employed people worked less than 35 hours per week, while 23.2 % worked less than 25 hours.
Patterns in average usual working week: by full-time and part-time workers and sex
The length of the average working week for full-time workers in the EU ranged from 38.8 hours in Finland to 42.7 hours in Greece (see Map 2). However, Serbia (44.0 hours), Switzerland (43.4 hours) and Iceland (42.8 hours) exceeded Greece with longer working weeks for full-time workers.
Country codes
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhun2)
The longest working week for part-time workers was recorded in Sweden with 26.4 hours and Romania, with 26.2 hours, while the shortest was recorded in Portugal, with 18.6 hours (see Map 3).
Country codes
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhun2)
On differences between men and women (Figure 3), male full-time workers had longer working weeks than their female counterparts in all countries. The most significant difference among the EU Member States was in Ireland and the Netherlands, with 4.0 and 3.7 hours gap, respectively, between the working weeks of male and female full-time workers.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhun2)
The pattern by sex is not the same for part-time workers: women had longer working weeks in most countries. Denmark stood out with the largest difference in the length of the average working week between male and female part-time workers (17.9 versus 21.9 hours, respectively).
How does the average usual working week vary across economic activities and occupations?
After having looked at the average number of working hours by country for the full-timers and part-timers separately, the usual working hours are analysed by sector of economic activities and groups of occupations at EU level for the full-time and part-time workers together.
The length of the average working week measured in usual hours of work varies across different sectors of economic activities (NACE Rev. 2) (see Figure 4). In 2022, people employed in the ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’ sector spent the most hours at work – 42.8 hours on average per week. They were followed by those working in the sectors ‘construction’ (40.5 hours), ‘activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies’ (40.2 hours) and ‘mining and quarrying’ (40.1 hours). By contrast, workers in ‘activities of households as employers’ (26.3 hours), ‘education’ (33.7 hours) and ‘arts, entertainment and recreation’ (34.5 hours) had the shortest average working weeks.
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhun2)
When looking at different groups of occupations (ISCO-08), skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (43.9 hours) and managers (43.3 hours) had the longest average usual working weeks in the EU in 2022 (see Figure 5). By contrast, clerical support workers (35.5 hours) and workers with elementary occupations (32.5 hours) had the shortest working weeks.
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhuis)
What are the differences between the usual average working week for employees and that for the self-employed?
Self-employed people with employees (i.e. employers) had the longest average working week at EU level in 2022 – 47.5 hours. They were followed by self-employed people without employees (also known as ‘own-account workers’) – 40.7 hours, and employees – 36.7 hours. Employers had the longest average working week in almost all countries (see Figure 6). In Bulgaria, the longest working week was recorded both for employers and own-account workers, while in Serbia own-account workers had the longest working week.
Source: Eurostat (lfsa_ewhun2)
The average working week for employees in the EU ranged from 32.2 hours in the Netherlands to 40.3 hours in Romania. The average working week for own-account workers ranged from 33.2 hours in Cyprus to 46.7 hours in Greece, and for employers it ranged from 38.5 hours in Estonia to 51.2 hours Belgium.
Source data for tables and graphs
Methods and definitions
Data sources
All figures in this article are based on the European labour force survey (EU-LFS).
Source: The European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 years and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results. The EU-LFS is based on the same target populations and uses the same definitions in all countries, which means that the results are comparable between the countries. The EU-LFS is an important source of information about the situation and trends in the national and EU labour markets. Each quarter around 1.8 million interviews are conducted throughout the participating countries to obtain statistical information for some 100 variables. Due to the diversity of information and the large sample size, the EU-LFS is also an important source for other European statistics like Education statistics or Regional statistics.
Reference period: Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.
Most of the information collected during the survey relates to the respondent’s situation during a reference week (being generally the week, from Monday to Sunday, preceding the interview).
Coverage: The results from the EU-LFS currently cover all European Union Member States, the EFTA Member States Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, as well as the candidate countries Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye.
For Cyprus, the survey covers only the areas of Cyprus controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
European aggregates: EU and EU-27 refer to the sum of the 27 EU Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates takes into account the data for the same country for the most recent available period. Such cases are indicated.
Definitions
The concepts and definitions used in the EU-LFS follow the resolutions of the International Conference of Labour Statisticians, hosted every five years by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Employment covers persons living in private households, who during the reference week performed work, for at least one hour, for pay, profit or family gain, or were not at work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent, for example because of illness, holidays, maternal or paternal leave or training.
Employment can be measured in terms of the number of persons, number of jobs, in full-time equivalents number of persons or in hours worked. All the estimates presented in this article use the number of persons; the information presented for employment rates is also built on estimates for the number of persons.
The LFS employment concept differs from national accounts domestic employment, as the latter sets no limit on age or type of household, and also includes the non-resident population contributing to GDP and excludes the resident population contributing to the GDP of another country and conscripts in military or community service.
Main concepts: Some main employment and working time characteristics, as defined by the EU-LFS, include:
- employees are defined as those who work for a public or private employer and who receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, payment by results, or payment in kind; non-conscript members of the armed forces are also included;
- self-employed persons work in their own business, farm or professional practice. A self-employed person is considered to be working during the reference week if she/he meets one of the following criteria: works for the purpose of earning profit; spends time on the operation of a business; or is currently establishing a business;
- the distinction between full-time and part-time work is generally based on a spontaneous response by the respondent. The main exceptions are the Netherlands and Iceland where a 35 hours threshold is applied, Sweden where a threshold is applied to the self-employed, and Norway where the thresholds are up to 32 hours for part-time, more than 36 hours for full-time, and the persons working between 32 and 36 hours are asked whether this is a full- or part-time position;
- actual hours worked in the reference week are the hours the person actually spends in work activities during the reference week. they provide measurement of direct labour input;
- usual hours worked are the number of hours per week usually worked in the main job. They are the modal value of the actual hours worked per week over a long reference period, excluding weeks when an absence from work occurs (e.g. holidays, leaves, strikes). They provide measurement of the organisation of working time.
Additional methodological information
More information on the EU-LFS can be found via the online publication EU Labour Force Survey, which includes eight articles on the technical and methodological aspects of the survey. The EU-LFS methodology in force from the 2021 data collection onwards is described in methodology from 2021 onwards. Detailed information on coding lists, explanatory notes and classifications used over time can be found under documentation.
For more information on the background definitions on hours of work, please consult Topic 6 “Working conditions including working
hours” from EU Labour Force Survey Explanatory Notes.
Context
Employment statistics can be used for a number of different analyses, including macroeconomic (looking at labour as a production factor), productivity or competitiveness studies. They can also be used to study a range of social and behavioural aspects related to an individual’s employment situation or employment as a source of household income.
Employment is both a structural indicator and a short-term indicator. As a structural indicator, it may shed light on the structure of labour markets and economic systems, as measured through the balance of labour supply and demand, or the quality of employment. As a short-term indicator, employment follows the business cycle; however, it has limits in this respect, as employment is often referred to as a lagging indicator.
Statistics on the hours of work adds a new dimension to employment. The “average number of usual weekly hours of work in the main job” is an indicator providing a perspective to the organisation of working time and social conditions on the labour market.