U.S. workers put in many more hours than Europeans do

The 9-to-5 workday is longer in the United States, and this study gets closer to why Americans spend so much time in the office.

Americans work a lot — maybe too much. Assistant Professor of Economics Alex Bick and his research partners looked at national labor force surveys from 1983 through 2011 of 18 European countries and the United States to find out how many hours are worked per person a week. From Fortune October 18, 2016:

According to the paper, Americans work nearly 25 percent more hours than Europeans. In other words, that’s an additional 258 hours per year or an hour more each weekday. The working paper, which has not yet been published, was written by three economists — Alexander Bick of Arizona State University, Bettina Bruggeman of McMaster University in Ontario, and Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln of Goethe University Frankfurt.

About Alex Bick