Another factor that may have fed the short workweek legend: most people only consider full-time staff when they take a look at the average work week, but in much of Europe, more people are working part time. This has been a growing trend for at least 15 years and it was exacerbated by the global financial crisis that began in 2008.
“What countries with low unemployment like the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany have done is, in effect, put one worker out of four in a part-time job,” said Perbost, the author of a study on work for the European Green Foundation, a Brussels-based political organisation funded by the EU Parliament. He added that 2012 statistics from Eurostat echo this idea.
Northern European countries, where Perbost said part-time jobs are much more common, have the lowest hours per week worked, for all workers, both full-time and part-time: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, the UK and Germany all average around 35 hours per week, according to Eurostat’s 2012 figures. Meanwhile, Greece’s workers logged an average of 38 hours, followed closely by Spain, Portugal and Italy. French workers, collectively, clocked in at about 35 hours on average.
Take a close look at part-time working hours across Europe and a startling trend emerges. The French even work longer part-time hours than their peers.
The part-time workweek in France averages 23.3 hours, compared with 20.1 for most of the other European Union countries, according to a 2013 survey by the French employment ministry’s research group Dares.
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