In these countries you already work less than 40 hours

The reduction of day to 37.5 hours a week has given One more step in its processing In Spain. However, although it may seemA substantial change On the workday, it will actually only involve a mere administrative procedure for many companies whose collective agreement already contemplates a day of less than 40 hours per week.

Despite this, Spain still has a longer working day than the European average. But how is the Spanish working day with respect to other countries of the world?

40 hours are the limit. According to Eurostat data Of 2023, the average of the day in real and common work hours in Spain is 36.4 hours. The Last data available The National Statistics Institute in this area are also 2023 and offers a slightly above figure with an average of 37.7 hours per week.

That figure places Spain in a place slightly above the average of real hours worked in Europe by people between 20 and 64 years, which registers 36.1 hours per week. It should be noted that this data refers to the number of real hours that these employees work, including overtime, whether or not they are paid. Not to the Maximum workdaywhich in Spain is 40 hours per week.

Work a lot, produce little. The European country with the longest working day is Greece that, with 39.8 hours, is followed by Romania (39.5 hours), Poland (39.3 hours) and Bulgaria (39 hours). It is striking that even those countries that supposedly have Larger real daysnone exceeds the average of 40 hours of real work.

However, these long days that are recorded in these countries are associated with a low time productivity worked. For example, according to Eurostat data of 2022 collected by the BBVA FoundationBulgaria is at a tail at performance per hour worked, followed by Greece, Latvia and Poland.

The most productive days. At the opposite end, countries with shorter working days are the Netherlands, with 32.2 hours per week, Austria (33.6 hours) and Germany (34 hours).

If we do the same exercise of crossing the data of the real hours worked with the productivity of those hours, we see that these countries, with shorter days, obtain a higher performance of their working hours, being above the average.

Spain with the 36.4 hours we have commented before, is located in the middle zone of the table. Portugal registered a day slightly longer than the Spanish with 37.7 hours, while below the day of Spain are that of France (36 hours), Italy (36.1 hours), Belgium (34.9 hours), Ireland (35.5 hours), Sweden (35.7 hours) and Denmark (34.3 hours).

The working day in the world. According to ILO data collected by World Population Reviewthe average working hours in the rest of the world are very different. Among the most working are Bután with 54.3 hours a week, United Arab Emirates (52 hours), Lesoto (49.5 hours), Qatar (48.2 hours), Lebanon and Liberia (48 hours), Republic of Congo (47.9 hours), Jordan (47 hours) or Pakistan and Brunei with 46.6 hours per week.

Among countries with smaller working hoursin addition to those already mentioned in Europe, they are Syria with 25.3 hours, Yemen (25.3 hours) and Mozambique (29.4 hours). However, most of the world works in the strip between 40 and 35 hours, with countries like Brazil with 37.9 hours, Japan (36.7 hours), Estatos United (36.4 hours), Israel (Israel ( 35.6 hours) or Argentina (35.4 hours).

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Image | Eurostat