Denmark has 37 hours/week. Netherlands is around 32-33 on average AFAIK. Switzerland is ~35 hours/week. Ireland and Austria are also well below 40 to my knowledge.
Most research shows that non-mechanical work (i.e. where you have to think a little), gets a lower work-output above 40 hours/week than below. If sustained, it’s not just diminishing returns, but lower absolute output, even at just 3-5hours weekly overtime.
Sorry, I am not Swiss myself, so I may be completely mistaken.
I read that the average working hours is ~31/week. Digging further into that, it was the number of actual working hours on average (including part time and self-employeds), not what constitutes full-time employment.
Fair enough. Once you get into actual hours worked, you have a lot of people working less than FTE numbers by quite a bit.
For example, once the maternity leave runs out, in finance a lot of couples go to 80% so that with 1-2 days of home office you can always have someone watching the child. It's less money but the nurseries are so crazy expensive in Switzerland that it can actually even be positive in terms of total (edit:net) income.
I am not sure if we are in disagreement, but I believe my point stands: that Switzerland is a rich country despite working less than 40 hours/week on avg (actual hours).
In Norway 40 hours is the maximum legally allowable (other than temporary overtime), most people have 37,5 hour work week. If one in addition count vacation days etc the difference between other countries and the US might be even starker, in total hours per year?
