That's partially due to the greater availability of part-time jobs in these nations. Workers in developed countries generally work fewer hours, on average. One key point to consider when looking at working hours is that the hours you work in a year will largely depend on where you live. Worldwide, the total time spent working in an average year is now back in line with pre-Industrial Revolution standards. Their European counterparts work an average of around 1,500 hours per year. Today, workers in the United States average 1,757 hours per year.
Most European countries implemented a standard 40-hour workweek by the 1970s. France did so in 1948, and Australia did the same in the 1960s. Most of the world would follow suit over the next few decades. Two years later, they amended the act and standardized the 40-hour workweek in the United States. This act required employers to pay for overtime work that's over 44 hours per week.
It wasn't until the United States Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that there was a nationwide standard for working hours. The mining industry introduced a shorter workweek in 1898, and the printing industry followed in 1905.īy the 1920s, the average worker could expect to work an eight-hour workday, six days a week. Several industries began to reform work hours to prevent labor strikes. The movement brought attention to the plight of the American worker. In 1886, thousands of workers across the country went on strike as a part of the Eight-Hour Day Movement. Understandably, workers started to rebel against these long hours. That is around 5,200 hours per year, or roughly three times the number of hours worked during medieval and renaissance times. government started tracking work hours in 1890, they found that the average workweek for manufacturing employees was an incredible 100 hours a week. Many workers put in 10 hours per day, six days a week.
How the industrial revolution changed everythingįour hundred years later, during the Industrial Revolution, working time skyrocketed. However, our medieval ancestors put in long days - most of those hours were worked during the planting and harvest seasons, which was only about six months per year. Most of the Western world today works around 1,700 hours a year, for comparison. Workers in the late fourteenth century only worked about 1,440 hours a year. It turns out our ancestors had much lower working hours than we do today. It took decades of demonstrations from the labor force and, finally, government intervention. Setting that standard was a hard-won battle. The typical workweek of eight hours a day, five days a week, is a relatively modern phenomenon. We'll investigate the history of the standard workweek, the typical work schedule, examine when other countries are clocking in and out, and see how companies measure work time around the world. So accurate tracking matters a lot.īut how did we end up with this Monday-to-Friday schedule? And what does the workweek look like for the rest of the world? Let's dive into the average annual hours worked by country and how we got here.
Maybe most importantly, working hours affect how much you get paid and whether or not you'll receive overtime pay. How many hours you work is also tied to benefits like health insurance, paid time off, and taxes. Tracking work hours even led to worker rebellions as labor forces demanded an eight-hour workday, which is now considered regular working hours for most of the world. They reached an all-time high during the Industrial Revolution before creeping back down to the lower levels we work today.ĭespite the change in average working hours throughout history, keeping track of those hours has always mattered. Weekly working hours have fluctuated over time. While we typically consider normal working hours to be something like 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, that hasn't always been the case. Time taken to travel to an occasional meeting away from your workplace (e.g. setting off half an hour early to get to the location of an awayday).How many hours did you work last week? We bet it was less than what your ancestors worked a few hundred years ago.
#WORK TIME OR WORKTIME FREE#
Time off the premises when you have to stay in contact with your employer by phone in case you are needed but are free to decide where you spend that time and do not have to respond so as to provide your services immediately when contacted Ĭommuting time to and from work, (the position is different for “mobile workers” – see below) or Obviously work you do at your workplace under the direction of your employer counts as working time.
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