47 hours per week

from David Ruccio

 

According to Gallup’s latest annual Work and Education Survey [ht: db],

Adults employed full time in the U.S. report working an average of 47 hours per week, almost a full workday longer than what a standard five-day, 9-to-5 schedule entails. In fact, half of all full-time workers indicate they typically work more than 40 hours, and nearly four in 10 say they work at least 50 hours.

That’s because salaried employees work longer hours than hourly workers (49 vs. 44 hours per week, respectively) and because many workers are being forced to take on more than one job (12 percent of full-time workers have two jobs, and 1 percent have three or more). However, even restricting the analysis to full-time workers who have only one job, the average number of hours worked is 46—still well over 40.

The excessive number of hours worked is a real boon to U.S. employers—not so much for American workers. Consider this: more than 9 million people are officially unemployed in the United States and half of American workers who have managed to find and keep their jobs are being forced to stay on the job more than the standard number of hours per week.