![]() ![]() Workers (both men and women) in Australia logged only slightly longer hours than their counterparts in New Zealand in 1996 (1,867 versus 1,838). Irish workers' annual hours dropped from 1,728 in 1980 to 1,656 in 1996, putting them roughly on a par with Switzerland (1,643), Denmark (1,689 hours for male workers in 1994) and Netherlands (1,679 for male workers in 1994). Workers in the United Kingdom, putting in 1,731 hours annually in 1997, appear to have neither gained nor lost much free time since 1980 when they worked 1,775 hours. In Germany (Western), the annual total of working hours was just under 1,560 in 1996 versus 1,610 in 1990 and 1,742 in 1980. In France, which recently introduced legislation limiting the work week to 35 hours, men and women workers put in 1,656 hours in 1997 versus 1,810 in the 1980s. The long working hours of US and Japanese workers (whose 1995 total was 1,889 annual hours worked versus 2,121 in 1980, a decline of more than 10%) contrasts most sharply with those of European workers, who are logging progressively fewer hours on the job, particularly in the Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden where hours worked in 1997 were, respectively 1,399 and 1,552 per year. It shows that the US pattern of increasing annual hours worked per person (which totalled 1,966 in 1997 versus 1,883 in 1980, an increase of nearly 4%) runs contrary to a world-wide trend in industrialized countries that has seen hours at work remaining steady or declining in recent years. The study examines 18 Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM), including labour productivity, labour costs, unemployment and underemployment and hours worked. GENEVA (ILO News) - US workers put in the longest hours on the job in industrialized nations, clocking up nearly 2,000 hours per capita in 1997, the equivalent of almost two working weeks more than their counterparts in Japan where annual hours worked have been gradually declining since 1980, according to a new statistical study * of global labour trends published by the International Labour Office (ILO). ![]()
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