Study reveals the number of hours Irish people work per week compared to other countries

Workers in the United States are very busy indeed.

A new study has found that Irish people work for just under four hours less per week than their counterparts in the United States, who are among the hardest-working people in the world. According to Bloomberg, the study, an unpublished working paper by economists Alexander Bick of Arizona State University, Bettina Bruggemann of McMaster University in Ontario, and Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln of Goethe University Frankfurt, revealed that workers in the US are not only putting in more hours, they also retire later and take less holidays than workers in other countries. The study sought to determine how much more hours US workers spent at work compared to other countries and it was quite revealing. The study found that the average US worker works for approximately 258 more hours per year than an average European worker, a little more than an extra hour per every week day. The study found, for example, that people in the US worked an average of 26.1 hours per week compared with 22.2 hours per week in Ireland and just 18.4 hours per week in Italy. It’s worth bearing in mind that the hours worked incorporates overall hours per person, not just people with jobs, and includes time spent in retirement, on holiday and other time spent out of the workforce. Pensions, taxes, greater incentives for US workers and greater strength of labour unions in Europe have all been cited as factors in the significant gap between Europe and the United States. You can read about the study in greater detail here.

Hours worked per person per week in selected countries

Italy – 18.4 hours France – 19.3 hours Germany – 20.2 hours Spain – 21.2 hours United Kingdom – 22 hours Ireland – 22.2 hours Portugal – 22.7 hours Switzerland – 25.1 hours United States – 26.1 hours