How many hours do people actually work?

Since 1938, the official work week has been 40 hours. That was a triumph for workers laboring 12 to 16 hours a day.

The labor motto was: 8 hours work; 8 hours rest; 8 hours for what we will.

How that has worked in practice for both blue collar and white collar employees is different than the motto indicates.

While, work week estimates vary widely depending on the source, most put average work times at greater than 40 hours.

According to the Labor Department, average hours for full-time work broke down this way:
– Management, professionals: 43.3.
– Service: 41.3
– Sales and office: 41.9

Gallup surveys, in which people self-report working hours, show office workers logging an average of 49 hours.

In production settings, according to labor statistics, work hours from 1940 to 2010 have been relatively stable at just over 40 hours, except for war years when hours topped 45 per week, and depression when hours dipped under 37.

In 2015, Fortune, using numbers from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, calculated he average work week at just 34.4 hours. This put the United States at 16th for the highest number of hours worked. Canada at 32.77 hours ranked 22nd; the United Kingdom was 24th at 32.25; and Australia was 25th at 32 hours.

In this analysis, the top six hardest working countries were Mexico at 42.85 hours; Costa Rica at 42.62; Korea, 40.85; Greece, 49.27; Chile, 38.27; and Russia, 38.17