What Is The Average Work Hours Per Week In The US?

What number of hours in a week do Americans work? What are the average work hours per week an employee is expected to work? How is this change based on factors such as gender, race, and age?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is responsible for tracking how many hours a week an average American puts into work and releases those statistics as part of a monthly Employment Status Summary. According to the latest data (May 2019), Americans work an average of 34.4 hours a week.

The number of hours worked can differ with respect to gender, age, marital status, race, ethnicity, occupation, and level of education. Want to know how your work week interacts with other Americans?

This article answers the question what are the average work hours per week in the US? This article will divide the average number of hours worked in the United States based on these different factors. It will also provide an overview of daily working hours based on the 2018 annual data summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Average Hours Per Week Worked (US)

Age

16 years and older: 38.9

Age 16-19: 24.1

20-24 years: 34.8

Age 25-54: 40.5

55 and above: 38.0

Gender

Men work an average of 41.0 hours a week in paid work while women put in an average of 36.4 hours a week.

Marital status

Married men work 4.5 hours a week more than single men. Married women worked 1.7 hours longer than unmarried women.

Race

White American: 38.9 hours per week

African American: 38.7 hours per week

Asian American: 38.9 hours per week

Nationality

Spanish and Latin: 38.2 hours per week

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Average Work Hours Per Week In Other Countries

According to a TechRepublic report, the Netherlands has the shortest working week of 29 hours, followed by Denmark at 32 hours per week. Countries with the highest number of hours worked include:

Colombia – 48 hours

Turkey – 48 hours

Mexico – 45 hours

South Africa – 43 hours

Average Hours Per Day Worked (US)

The total number of hours Americans work per day varies based on factors such as weekends compared to work days, homework compared to office work, and self-employment compared to paid work status. Factors such as gender and education also influence the statistics.

Our information in this article is based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These figures refer to the 2018 numbers released in June 2019.

Average hours per day worked (US);

Average weekday: 8.5 hours

Average weekend days: 5.4 hours

Hours By Gender

• On working days, employed men work an average of 34 minutes longer than employed women – this difference may be due to the higher rate of part-time women (approximately double the number of part-time women than part-time men).

• However, for full-time employees, men still work longer hours than women, working 8.2 hours compared to 7.9 hours for women.

• Significantly, women spend most of their time on household responsibilities. On average, 84% of women and 69% of men spend some time doing household chores, such as doing housework, cooking, lawn care, or managing a household. On days when they did household chores, women spent an average of 2.6 hours on these tasks, while men spent 2.0 hours.

Weekend Job

• More full-time employees work more days than on weekends: 89% work on average on weekdays, compared to 31% on average weekends.
• Employees worked an average of 5.4 hours each weekend.
• Self-employed workers are more likely to work on weekends than paid employees, at 41.1% compared to 28.0%.
• Most employers are more likely to work on an average of 56% each weekend than 28% for those holding only one job.

Hours By Location

• On working days, 81.7% of employees did one or all of their work at work, while an average of 23.7% did most of their work at home.

• Employees spend more time at work than at home – 7.94 hours at work and 2.94 hours at home.

• Compared to previous years, more people have started working from home. On an average of a day’s work last year, 23.7% of full-time employees spent at least half of their working day working from home, compared to 18% in 2003.

Type of Work

People who did more work were more likely to work on average during the week than those who did one job (90.3% vs 81.7%).

Education

• Graduates are more likely to work from home: 41.7% of employees over the age of 25 with a degree work at home. Only 11.9% of high school diploma workers do homework.
• Highly qualified employees are more likely to work on a regular day (74.2%) than those with a high school diploma (64.9%).
• Those with a higher degree (bachelor’s degree and above) work fewer hours on average compared to those with a lesser degree. Those with a higher degree worked 8.0 hours a day according to provided data, while those with a high school diploma worked most of the day: 8.2 hours.

In April 2022, the average working week for all non-farm workers in the United States was 34.6 hours. The Data was updated. Employed persons include all employees who work and earn on private jobs.

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US Working Week

As in many industrialized nations, the typical working week in the United States begins on Monday and ends on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as weekends.

According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average working week for all employees (including part-time) working in the private sector in the United States reached approximately 34.7 hours by 2021. In one month, US workers total 39 billion hours.

The average week of work varies significantly from industry to industry. For example, an employee in the mining and logging industry worked approximately 45.7 hours a week in March 2022, while education and health workers worked an average of 33.5 hours a week.

Conclusion

Summarily;

• Americans give in an average of 34.4 hours each week.
• The number of hours worked per week varies according to gender, marital status, and race.
• 7% of employees do at least one of their jobs at home.

If you are considering a career or looking for a job in the United States and want to find out how many hours of your time on average you can spend, we hope this article has been satisfactory enough.

Note: As used in this article the abbreviation US stands for the United States of America usually attributed to as the USA.