Mapped: How Many Hours Europeans Work Each Week

There’s an old joke: are you working hard, or hardly working? “Hard work” is difficult to measure, but it is possible to know who’s working the longest.

This heatmap visualizes the average hours Europeans work each week by country, as sourced from Eurostat’s Labor Force Survey (2023). The dataset covers employed persons aged 20–64 in a “main occupation” and includes full and part time work.

The Balkans Work the Longest in Europe

Less wealthy countries of Europe (by per capita GDP) tend to have longer work weeks. For example, people in the Balkans—including Türkiye, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Greece, and Romania—all put in an average of 40+ hours a week at their main jobs.Search:

Rank	Country	Average Weekly Hours Worked (2023)
1	Türkiye	44
2	Serbia	42
3	Bosnia & Herzegovina	41
4	Greece	40
5	Romania	40
6	Poland	39
7	Bulgaria	39
8	Cyprus	39
9	Latvia	38
10	Lithuania	38
11	Croatia	38
N/A	EU (2020)	36

In contrast, those in the Netherlands work 32 hours per week on average. This disparity between Eastern and Western Europe is not new. Data from 2008 reflects largely the same trends.

Another find in the Labor Force Survey is how weekly working hours differ by occupation. Those in agriculture, forestry, and fishery have the longest workweeks (44 hours).

Rank	Occupation	Average Weekly Hours Worked (2023)
1	Agricultural, forestry & fishery	44
2	Managers	42
3	Armed forces	40
4	Trades	38
5	Plant and machinery operators	38
6	Technicians	35
7	Professionals	35
8	Service and sales	34
9	Clerical support	33
10	Elementary occupations	31

When cross-referencing both datasets, some correlations emerge. For example, in Türkiye and Serbia, the two longest-working nations in Europe, nearly 20% of the workforce is employed in agriculture.

Similarly, Bosnia (3rd) and Romania (5th) also have roughly the same distribution (20%) of the workforce in agriculture.

Meanwhile, Greece’s average hours are about to go up: the government has introduced a six-day workweek for certain industries, in a bid to boost productivity.

Source: GWFM Research & Study