Bar chart: Average weekly working hours

The bar chart shows the average number of hours worked per week in six countries.

Overall, there was a gap of 10 hours between the country with the longest working week and the one with the shortest. The countries with the longest hours were Mexico and South Korea, while European countries recorded the lowest figures.

Mexico had the longest working week, at 42 hours, followed closely by South Korea with 40 hours and Turkey with 39 hours. These three countries were therefore all at or near the 40-hour mark, and the difference between the first and the third was just 3 hours.

Working weeks were noticeably shorter in the remaining three countries. Japan was in the middle of the range, at 36 hours, which was 6 hours fewer than in Mexico. France averaged 34 hours per week, and Germany had the shortest working week of all, with only 32 hours, a full 10 hours below the Mexican figure.

It is notable that the figures declined in a regular sequence, with each country working between 1 and 3 hours less than the one before it.