It’s widely known that Americans work hard for their salary, but is it because of the work ethic instilled from a young age or simply because there is no other option.
Well, a chart has revealed the average amount of hours that people work in 34 of the 38 countries that are signed up to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)… and it doesn’t make for good reading for US citizens.
Before we go straight into where the US ranked, let’s make sense of the readings first.
The graph, which was created by the OECD, lists the ‘hours worked’ by each country which is the total number of hours actually worked per year, divided by the average number of people in employment per year.
Explaining the data, which covers employees and self-employed workers and is measured in ‘hours per worker per year’, the organization wrote: “Actual hours worked include regular work hours of full-time, part-time and part-year workers, paid and unpaid overtime, hours worked in additional jobs.
“Hours excluded include time not worked because of public holidays, annual paid leave, own illness, injury and temporary disability, maternity leave, parental leave, schooling or training, slack work for technical or economic reasons, strike or labour dispute, bad weather, compensation leave and other reasons.”
Now that we’ve got the boring stuff out the way, let’s dive into the chart – which we’ll start with the winners of the working weeks, and that is the automotive champions Germany.
Residents in Germany enjoy the greatest work-life balance averaging just 1,343 annual hours per worker – which correlates to 168 eight-hour working days.
Then at the other end of the table, Mexico has the worst work-life balance with residents working an average 276 eight-hour working days and a total of 2,207 annual hours worked per employee.
If we ranked Germany at number one, how far is the US behind?
In 26th position, falls the United States of America, averaging 225 eight-hour days, or 1,799 annual working hours put in per worker.
Even the Japanese, who are famously hard-workers, have a decent work-life balance ranking 13th on the list and their economy averages 201 eight-hour working days and 1,611 hours in total.
While over in the UK, they sit in 11th place with just 191 eight-hour working days and a total of 1,524 annual hours worked.
To make matters worse, the US is the only advanced economy that doesn’t guarantee paid holidays for employees, while over in the EU, workers are entitled to at least four weeks paid holiday every year.
