Usual weekly hours worked in the main job
- Eurostat dataset
- lfsa_ewhun2
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- hours per week
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 37.3 hours per week.
- Highest value: Türkiye at 44.1 hours per week; lowest: Netherlands at 33.0 hours per week.
- Cross-country mean 38.5 hours per week, standard deviation 2.26, coefficient of variation 5.9% across 34 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2014→2025: -1.2% on a constant panel of 33 countries.
How long is the European working week? Eurostat dataset lfsa_ewhun2 reports usual weekly hours worked in the main job for 34 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 37.3 hours per week. Usual hours, unlike actual hours, are unaffected by holidays and absence, making them the stable structural measure.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by Türkiye (44.1), Serbia (41.7), Bosnia and Herzegovina (41.2), Greece (41.0), North Macedonia (40.7), all expressed in hours per week. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Netherlands (33.0), Denmark (34.6), Germany (35.0), Norway (35.8), Switzerland (35.8). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 1.34, while the median country reports 39.0 hours per week against a mean of 38.5 hours per week.
Dispersion is narrow: the standard deviation across countries is 2.26 hours per week, giving a coefficient of variation of 5.9%. The mean sits below the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the lower tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2014 and 2025 the summed value across the 33 countries reporting in both periods moved by -1.2%. The largest relative increases are observed in Sweden (+4.0%), Netherlands (+3.8%), Norway (+2.9%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Türkiye (-8.1%), Iceland (-5.4%), Czechia (-3.4%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
This indicator has no normatively preferred direction; its analytical value lies in the structure of the distribution and in how national positions move relative to each other over time. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset lfsa_ewhun2 ('Average usual weekly hours worked in the main job by professional status, full-time/part-time employment and economic activity (NACE Rev. 2) (2008-2026)'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-06-30. Filter dimensions: sex=T; age=Y20-64; worktime=TOTAL; nace_r2=TOTAL; unit=HR; wstatus=EMP. Unit of measure: hours per week. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (34 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.