In Eurostat research, the term "long working hours" means an average of 49 or more hours worked throughout the week – it's worth noting that the widely accepted standard is a 40-hour work week. According to 2022 data, across the entire European Union, 7% of employees aged 15 to 64 declared such working hours. How does our country fare in this ranking? In Poland, long working hours concern 8% of employees, placing us 11th among 33 countries. We work an average of 7 to 9 hours a day, indicates data from Polskanatle.pl.



Greece ranked highest (12.6%), second place went to France (10.2%), and third to Cyprus (9.7%). People work over 9 hours there. Employees in Lithuania, Latvia, and Bulgaria do not have to worry about long working hours. Only about 1% of all employed individuals work more than 8 hours a day there.

Detailed research has allowed for the formulation of interesting observations. One of them was a higher frequency of long working hours among self-employed individuals (30%) compared to employees (4%). The relationship between overtime hours and occupational structure is also interesting. Research results show that longer working hours are more common among skilled agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers (28%) as well as managers (24%). The EU average for other professional groups is 8% – this percentage declared long working hours.

Currently, there is increasing talk about the so-called work-life balance. This is a concept that assumes a balance between private and professional life. This involves, among other things, reducing overtime. Why is this such an important topic? According to WHO research, additional working hours can cause long-term stress and fatigue, which in turn leads to a deterioration of health.

The results of the above study show that this trend has the potential for dynamic development in EU countries as well. Poland's example also confirms this – long working hours affected only 7.9% of employees. And although there is still much to improve and streamline, the presented data is optimistic.

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