Working Hours from Around the World

Working late tonight? See how you stack up against workers from other countries with this online tool from the BBC: Link

The data is gathered from 34 developed nations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). They're quite interesting in and of themselves:

A look at the average annual hours worked per person in selected countries puts South Korea top with a whopping 2,193 hours, followed by Chile on 2,068.

British workers clock up 1,647 hours and Germans 1,408 - putting them at the bottom of the table, above only the Netherlands.

Greek workers have had a bad press recently but, as we reported in February, they work longer hours than any other Europeans. Their average of 2,017 hours a year puts them third in the international ranking

But working long hours doesn't necessarily mean working better:

"Generally speaking, long working hours are associated with lower productivity per hour. Workers are working very long hours to achieve a minimum level of output or to achieve some minimum level of wages because frankly they're not very productive," Messenger says.

Wesley Stephenson of BBC News has the complete report: Link