This is how hard Hungarians work compared to other EU countries

A recently published Eurostat survey reveals the number of average weekly working hours in EU countries. Based on this, we can get an idea of how hard we work in Hungary compared to other countries in the European Union.

An average European works 37 hours a week. However, the number of weekly working hours varies from country to country in the European Union. This is also reflected in a recently published Eurostat survey that shows how many hours we worked in previous years.

The ranking of working hours in EU countries is based on the answers of participants aged between 15-70 years. Accordingly, the Dutch work the least in the EU, with only 30 hours a week. In addition to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and some regions in Italy also have short working weeks of 33-35 hours.

In the range of 35-39 weekly working hours, we can find Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Belgium, France, Spain, Luxembourg, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Iceland.

Compared to the European average of 37 hours,

Hungary is listed in the middle rank with 39.5 working hours in 2019 and 39.3 weekly working hours in 2020.

Based on the fact that wages in Western Europe are much higher than in Hungary, we have reason to be envious, reported Hungarian news portal Pénzcentrum.

Besides Hungarians, residents in the neighbouring countries also work hard. The number of weekly working hours is above 39 in Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, even exceeding 40 hours in Slovakia. The situation is the worst in Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and Turkey, where people work up to 42 hours in an average working week.

Regional breakdown

In addition to the national comparison, we can also observe differences between regions within a country. Based on this,

Pest county has the highest number of working hours: 40 hours per week.

By 2020, this fell slightly to 39.7 but still kept the nationwide record. Hungarians also work a lot in the Central Transdanubian region where they worked 39.8 hours in 2019 and 39.5 hours in 2020. The number of working hours exceeds 39 hours in all regions of Hungary. People in South Transdanubia worked the least but still more than the EU average, with 39.1 hours in 2019 and 39.3 hours in 2020.

Gender differences are also reflected in the data. Accordingly, Hungarian men work slightly more than women. While the average number of weekly working hours in their case is 40-41 hours, Hungarian women worked an average of 38-39 hours in recent years. This is still well above the European average.

This might be due to the low employment rate of women with children that is generally low in all EU Member States, but statistically, it is the lowest in Hungary. Approximately one-fifth of Hungarian mothers with children under 2 are active in the labour market.