What We're Showing
The average weekly number of hours worked per employee by country. ILO defines employees as those who work for wages under employers, which does not include self-employment.
Data comes from the International Labour Organization and includes 108 out of the 187 ILO member states.
The latest annual data was used for each country, ranging from 2021 to 2023.
Key Takeaways
- Working more than 48 hours per week is considered excessive by ILO standards due to its negative impacts on health, safety, productivity, and work-life balance. The top 10 countries all had average work weeks over 48 hours.
- Four of the five countries with the longest work weeks are in the Asia–Pacific region: India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Cambodia.
- European countries tend to have shorter work weeks, with workers in the Netherlands averaging around 29.8 hours a week.
