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The average workweek can range from less than 40 hours to close to 50 hours around the world.

South Africa avoids either extreme, with working men in our country clocking in an average of 44 hours per week and women spending 40 hours a week at work according to 2020 data.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rising unemployment, South African employees have been working less, knocking the total hours worked in the country down in the last five years.

Statistics South Africa’s latest Labour Market Dynamics report has found that each year between 2015 and 2020, 71,7 million fewer hours have been worked in the country.

BusinessTech reported on more of the findings from the report, noting how the number of hours worked depends on the job sector:

“The average weekly hours worked increased only among the skilled agricultural occupations over the period 2015 and 2020,” Statistics South Africa said.

“The highest decreases in the average hours worked were observed in sales and services (three hours) and Managers (two hours) while the average hours worked remained unchanged for plant and machine operators. However, average hours worked decreased by one hour for domestic workers, professionals, technicians, clerks, elementary as well as craft and related trade occupations.”

In terms of the average hours worked by each province for the period between 2015 and 2020, the Western Cape and Gauteng appear to have had the same average working hours for 2020:

Image: Statistics South Africa

South Africa was actually ranked sixth in the World Population Review‘s list of the top 10 countries with the longest workweek for 2019 (Penn World Table, 2019 data).

With an average of 42,1 hours spent at work per week, we were placed below Malaysia (42,3 hours), Singapore (44,8 hours), Bangladesh (46,5 hours), Myanmar (47,1 hours), and Cambodia (47,6) with the highest amount of hours worked:

Image: World Population Review

The top five countries with the shortest workweeks for 2020 were, as you can imagine, mostly first-world economies, according to the  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED) 2020 data:

1. Denmark — 25,9
2. Norway — 26,3
3. Germany — 25,6
4. Netherlands — 26,9
5. Iceland — 27,6

You can explore more about the hours worked in each country on the world map here.

[source:businesstech]