Why Working Hour Statistics Are Misleading

NPR called it the Great French Lunch Break.

Because of the French labor code, workers are prohibited from doing work during lunchtime. As a mandate and a social norm. midday, you leave the office to enjoy an hour’s repast (or more) with your work friends.

Used to an entirely different workday in the U.S., an American at the University of Strasbourg describes having to sneak a moment or two at her desk during lunchtime. As you might expect, lunch gives us a clue about who works more.

Working Hours

Comparing annual working hours among 34 OECD countries, we see that the United States, with 225 8-hour workdays, is #9. At approximately 60 hours more than the OECD average, a U.S. worker clocks in at 1799 hours annually (or 38.6 hours on a main job a week):

However, the Wall Street Journal tells us that our workday does not begin with or end at work. According to Microsoft’s annual study of workplace productivity trends, the average worker receives 117 emails and 153 chats each day. Unable to read all during the day, many of us review emails during the early morning before work or after in the evening:

Furthermore, because meeting participants span time zones and national borders, an evening meeting is more likely. Again, based on data from Microsoft, after business hours, the average worker sends and receives at least 50 messages. Furthermore, almost one-third of all “active workers” checked their inboxes by 10 pm.

Our Bottom Line: Tradeoffs

In the United States during 1870, your great grandfather might have worked 3,096 hours in while your average in 2023 was 1,799. The result is a lot more time for leisure.

But not necessarily.

Used to be that more leisure time at home meant we sacrificed time at work.  Now though, with at-home technology, our work-leisure tradeoffs have changed. Thinking at the margin, we have to manage a cascade of emails and meetings.

In the U.S., we don’t have the benefit of legal boundaries and social norms that say we have to have the Great French Lunch Break or four weeks of paid holiday.

My sources and more: Thanks to WSJ for inspiring tody’s post. From there the possibilities were countless. Ranging from the Visual Capitalist and Sherwood, to OECD data and this Microsoft study the data about work hours is considerable.

Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a past econlife post.