How Many Hours Europeans Work Each Week

The New Diplomat
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There’s an old joke: are you working hard, or hardly working? “Hard work” is difficult to measure, but it is possible to know who’s working the longest.

This heatmap visualizes the average hours Europeans work each week by country, as sourced from Eurostat’s Labor Force Survey (2023). The dataset covers employed persons aged 20–64 in a “main occupation” and includes full and part time work.

The Balkans Work the Longest in Europe

Less wealthy countries of Europe (by per capita GDP) tend to have longer work weeks. For example, people in the Balkans—including Türkiye, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Greece, and Romania—all put in an average of 40+ hours a week at their main jobs.

Rank Country Average Weekly
Hours Worked (2023)
1 🇹🇷 Türkiye 44
2 🇷🇸 Serbia 42
3 🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina 41
4 🇬🇷 Greece 40
5 🇷🇴 Romania 40
6 🇵🇱 Poland 39
7 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 39
8 🇨🇾 Cyprus 39
9 🇱🇻 Latvia 38
10 🇱🇹 Lithuania 38
11 🇭🇷 Croatia 38
N/A 🇪🇺 EU (2020) 36
Showing 1 to 11 of 33 entries
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Note: Figures rounded.

In contrast, those in the Netherlands work 32 hours per week on average. This disparity between Eastern and Western Europe is not new. Data from 2008 reflects largely the same trends.

Another find in the Labor Force Survey is how weekly working hours differ by occupation. Those in agriculture, forestry, and fishery have the longest workweeks (44 hours).

Rank Occupation Average Weekly Hours Worked (2023)
1 🌾 Agricultural, forestry & fishery 44
2 💼 Managers 42
3 🪖 Armed forces 40
4 🔧 Trades 38
5 🏭 Plant and machinery operators 38
6 🔬 Technicians 35
7 👩‍🏫 Professionals 35
8 🛎️ Service and sales 34
9 🖇️ Clerical support 33
10 🔤 Elementary occupations 31

Note: Figures rounded. Occupational average work hours accessible when customizing filters in source dataset.

When cross-referencing both datasets, some correlations emerge. For example, in Türkiye and Serbia, the two longest-working nations in Europe, nearly 20% of the workforce is employed in agriculture.

Similarly, in Bosnia (3rd) and Romania (5th) nearly one-third of the workforce is in agriculture.

Meanwhile, Greece’s average hours are about to go up: the government has introduced a six-day workweek for certain industries, in a bid to boost productivity.

Source: Visual Capitalist

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