I remember the days of making a decent wage working 40 hours per week and having a CHOICE to work more hours for overtime/time and a half. I've worked 100 hour weeks and after all the taxes Pennsylvania has…which includes county taxes, city taxes, ambulance tax…yes if you work in Pennsylvania you pay 'privilege' taxes. To top that off, these gas and oil companies now have a law working in their favor….they do NOT have to pay overtime/time and a half! It's a FEDERAL law made to suit them, certainly NOT the worker.
These young people working all these hours think they are making "great money". There are more twist and turns to what these gas and oil companies are allowed to do concerning workers is unbelievable! There USED to be a federal law saying how many hours a person could work per day….gone thanks to the gas and oil industry. As I already said, time and a half for hours worked over 40 hours…gone thanks to the gas and oil industry.
Even the people making money off wells being on their property are being ripped off. The government have made 'laws' to where these gas and oil companies do NOT have to tell these people why they are now losing more and more money from the wells. The long-term decline in the length of the workweek, in this view, has primarily been due to increased economic productivity, which has yielded higher wages for workers.
Workers responded to this rise in potential income by "buying" more leisure time, as well as by buying more goods and services. In a recent survey, a sizeable majority of economic historians agreed with this view. Over eighty percent accepted the proposition that "the reduction in the length of the workweek in American manufacturing before the Great Depression was primarily due to economic growth and the increased wages it brought" . Other broad forces probably played only a secondary role. For example, roughly two-thirds of economic historians surveyed rejected the proposition that the efforts of labor unions were the primary cause of the drop in work hours before the Great Depression. As the length of the workweek gradually declined, political agitation for shorter hours seems to have waned for the next two decades.
However, immediately after the Civil War reductions in the length of the workweek reemerged as an important issue for organized labor. Roediger argues that many of the new ideas about shorter hours grew out of the abolitionists' critique of slavery — that long hours, like slavery, stunted aggregate demand in the economy. The hub of the newly launched movement was Boston and Grand Eight Hours Leagues sprang up around the country in 1865 and 1866. The leaders of the movement called the meeting of the first national organization to unite workers of different trades, the National Labor Union, which met in Baltimore in 1867.
How Many Hours Does A Normal Person Work A Week The passage of the state laws did foment action by workers — especially in Chicago where parades, a general strike, rioting and martial law ensued. In only a few places did work hours fall after the passage of these laws. Many become disillusioned with the idea of using the government to promote shorter hours and by the late 1860s, efforts to push for a universal eight-hour day had been put on the back burner.
Eastern European immigrants worked significantly longer than others, as did people in industries whose output varied considerably from season to season. High unionization and strike levels reduced hours to a small degree. The average female employee worked about six and a half fewer hours per week in 1919 than did the average male employee. In city-level comparisons, state maximum hours laws appear to have had little affect on average work hours, once the influences of other factors have been taken into account.
One possibility is that these laws were passed only after economic forces lowered the length of the workweek. Overall, in cities where wages were one percent higher, hours were about -0.13 to -0.05 percent lower. Again, this suggests that during the era of declining hours, workers were willing to use higher wages to "buy" shorter hours. Around the world, the average workweek can range from less than 40 hours to close to 50 hours. Workweek length varies greatly from one industry to another and from one country to the next. Those countries with a cultural emphasis on work/life balance and adequate leisure/family time generally have shorter official workweeks and more vacation days.
These countries also trend toward more generous overtime compensation, more worker-friendly regulations, more favorable parental leave laws, and an increased chance of landing on the list of the world's happiest countries. By comparison, those countries with longer workweeks, fewer worker protections. And reduced amenities tend to have lower life satisfaction and rank as less happy overall. I've been a bedside registered nurse for the past 13 years in critical care. It really doesn't matter what type of bedside nursing you do because they are all draining in different ways.
Most nurses who are single work extra shifts in order to have something left so far as finances after living expenses. 36 hour weeks per week won't cut it, if you're not a trust fund baby. I've worked an average of 60 hours/wk most of those 13 years and can honestly say, I detest so much about so much.
Most people on this forum can not even begin to imagine the pain that bedside nurses experience regularly. I used to be so positive, beautiful, energetic and alive. I have nothing to give myself or anyone else when I am not at work.
It seems every tasks outside of work takes monumental effort. I am mentally, physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted to the degree I regular ask myself, "What are you doing with you life". Nurses and doctors are committing suicide left and right at alarming success rate. It's just not talked about in the mainstream media. It's a forbidden topic of discussion in the medical field it seems. Medical Insurance Company CEO's are ranking in millions annually w/ ungodly bonuses while we little people slave away trying to make a difference w/ scare resources and dehumanizing conditions.
Most patient and loved ones are great people and deserve the best care. They just can not fathom the impossible level of responsibility each bedside nurse has. Many people thank nurses are witches, but they're perspective is all wrong. In almost every case, if you've ever met a nurse you were sure was a witch, you can almost be certain that that nurse has been chronically abuse, dehumanized, bullied, etc.
It's easy for nurses to go numb, becoming apathetic toward everyone and everyt% hing. It's a company within a company within a company full of shareholders whose names are not listed. The top 1% of the 1% own more than the bottom 90% as a collective in the US. Even if the majority erased all of them, there will always be more sociopaths and malignant narcissists within the 90% majority to eventually destroy things all over again. Change will never happen so long as the majority remains uneducated on identifying and disarming sociopaths and narcissistic criminals. Many countries regulate the work week by law, such as stipulating minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays, and a maximum number of working hours per week.
Working time may vary from person to person, often depending on economic conditions, location, culture, lifestyle choice, and the profitability of the individual's livelihood. For example, someone who is supporting children and paying a large mortgage might need to work more hours to meet basic costs of living than someone of the same earning power with lower housing costs. Average weekly hours relate to the average hours per worker for which pay was received and is different from standard or scheduled hours. Factors such as unpaid absenteeism, labor turnover, part-time work, and stoppages cause average weekly hours to be lower than scheduled hours of work for an establishment. Group averages further reflect changes in the workweek of component industries.
Average weekly hours are the total weekly hours divided by the employees paid for those hours. A new cadre of social scientists began to offer evidence that long hours produced health-threatening, productivity-reducing fatigue. This line of reasoning, advanced in the court brief of Louis Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark, was crucial in the Supreme Court's decision to support state regulation of women's hours in Muller vs. Oregon. Goldmark's book, Fatigue and Efficiency was a landmark. In addition, data relating to hours and output among British and American war workers during World War I helped convince some that long hours could be counterproductive. Businessmen, however, frequently attacked the shorter hours movement as merely a ploy to raise wages, since workers were generally willing to work overtime at higher wage rates.
While it may seem as if Australians are working longer hours than ever, the average actual hours worked per employed person have decreased over the past 32 years. However, the average actual hours worked by full-time and part-time employed people have both increased (although average actual hours worked by full-time employed people have been decreasing since 2000). This total decrease, but component increase, can be attributed to the changing full-time to part-time composition of the workforce.
Trends in the actual hours worked by hours worked cohorts are explored, in particular for those working few (1-15) hours and those on the cusp (30-34 hours) of full-time employment. The swift reduction of the workweek in the period around World War I has been extensively analyzed by Whaples . His findings support the consensus that economic growth was the key to reduced work hours.
He finds that the rapid economic expansion of the World War I period, which pushed up real wages by more than 18 percent between 1914 and 1919, explains about half of the drop in the length of the workweek. The reduction of immigration during the war was important, as it deprived employers of a group of workers who were willing to put in long hours, explaining about one-fifth of the hours decline. The rapid electrification of manufacturing seems also to have played an important role in reducing the workweek. Increased unionization explains about one-seventh of the reduction, and federal and state legislation and policies that mandated reduced workweeks also had a noticeable role. I live in Ireland, annual leave is 20 working days per year and 9 public holidays. Employers are always finding new and innovative ways to get around employment rights for employees.
Only for EU directives we would be on a lot less annual leave and fewer employment rights. If anything we follow the American model more than the rest of Europe model. Some industries – law, tech etc pay ok but people don't get their full annual leave and if it's not used by the deadline, they lose it. Employees in the pharma industries are contracted to work 11 month but their contracts are renewed or not before the full 12 months so the employers can avoid employment rights. The pilots who work for Ryanair are better paid than their counterparts but are self employed, they have to set themselves up as companies and get paid through a recruitment company to work for themselves.
The HMRC in the UK are looking into Ryanair's work practices not the Irish government. There are tons of legal loop holes in Irish employment laws and the government doesn't care one bit. However, with enough data to compile and consider, trends do emerge. As a rule, more high-income countries such as Germany and France enjoy shorter workweeks than do middle-income and developing countries. It is likely that work weeks in the low-income and least-developed countries are the longest of all, at least for those people who can find work, but reputable data are often difficult to obtain.
An updated analysis using more recent 2020 data can be seen below. Yip Siu-fai, Professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of HKU, has noted that professions such as nursing and accountancy have long working hours and that this may affect people's social life. He believes that standard working hours could help to give Hong Kong more family-friendly workplaces and to increase fertility rates. Randy Chiu, Professor of the Department of Management of HKBU, has said that introducing standard working hours could avoid excessively long working hours of employees.
Hong Kong has no legislation regarding maximum and normal working hours. The average weekly working hours of full-time employees in Hong Kong is 49 hours. In Hong Kong, 70% of surveyed do not receive any overtime remuneration. These show that people in Hong Kong concerns the working time issues.
As Hong Kong implemented the minimum wage law in May 2011, the Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, of the Special Administrative Region pledged that the government will standardize working hours in Hong Kong. To determine how long the average workweek is around the world, 24/7 Wall St. analyzed data on the average hours usually worked among dependent employees in 2018 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Data on the percentage of dependent employees who work part-time -- less than 30 hours a week -- also came from the OECD and is for 2018. Additional data listed is all from the OECD and is for the most recent period available.
All figures are annual except for unemployment figures, which are quarterly. All data on employee hours and part-time work are for dependent employees, meaning it does not include self-employed workers. Because of changing definitions and data sources there does not exist a consistent series of workweek estimates covering the entire twentieth century.
Table 2 presents six sets of estimates of weekly hours. Despite differences among the series, there is a fairly consistent pattern, with weekly hours falling considerably during the first third of the century and much more slowly thereafter. In particular, hours fell strongly during the years surrounding World War I, so that by 1919 the eight-hour day had been won. Hours fell sharply at the beginning of the Great Depression, especially in manufacturing, then rebounded somewhat and peaked during World War II. After World War II, the length of the workweek stabilized around forty hours. Owen's nonstudent-male series shows little trend after World War II, but the other series show a slow, but steady, decline in the length of the average workweek.
Greis's two series are based on the average length of the workyear and adjust for paid vacations, holidays and other time-off. The last column is based on information reported by individuals in the decennial censuses and in the Current Population Survey of 1988. It may be the most accurate and representative series, as it is based entirely on the responses of individuals rather than employers. The length of the workweek, like other labor market outcomes, is determined by the interaction of the supply and demand for labor. On the other hand, longer hours can bring reduced productivity due to worker fatigue and can bring worker demands for higher hourly wages to compensate for putting in long hours. If they set the workweek too high, workers may quit and few workers will be willing to work for them at a competitive wage rate.
Thus, workers implicitly choose among a variety of jobs — some offering shorter hours and lower earnings, others offering longer hours and higher earnings. The movement for shorter hours as a depression-fighting work-sharing measure built such a seemingly irresistible momentum that by 1933 observers predicting that the "30-hour week was within a month of becoming federal law" . The bill was sponsored in the House by William Connery. Instead, FDR backed the National Industrial Recovery Act .
Hunnicutt argues that an implicit deal was struck in the NIRA. Labor leaders were persuaded by NIRA Section 7a's provisions — which guaranteed union organization and collective bargaining — to support the NIRA rather than the Black-Connery Thirty-Hour Bill. Business, with the threat of thirty hours hanging over its head, fell raggedly into line. Despite a plan by NRA Administrator Hugh Johnson to make blanket provisions for a thirty-five hour workweek in all industry codes, by late August 1933, the momentum toward the thirty-hour week had dissipated. About half of employees covered by NRA codes had their hours set at forty per week and nearly 40 percent had workweeks longer than forty hours.
Labor markets became very tight during World War I as the demand for workers soared and the unemployment rate plunged. These forces put workers in a strong bargaining position, which they used to obtain shorter work schedules. The move to shorter hours was also pushed by the federal government, which gave unprecedented support to unionization. The federal government began to intervene in labor disputes for the first time, and the National War Labor Board "almost invariably awarded the basic eight-hour day when the question of hours was at issue" in labor disputes .
