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Now it’s official: In 2019, full-time employees in Switzerland worked an average of 42 hours and 24 minutes a week. This places Switzerland in front of Iceland (42h 6min) in Europe. This is shown in a survey published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday.
Switzerland and Iceland also rank first in terms of hours worked per capita. Putting the total volume of weekly working hours in relation to the total population of 15 years (this also includes non-working people), the result is a per capita job performance for Switzerland of 23 hours and 12 minutes.
Deep unemployment
Here, Switzerland ends behind Iceland, which at 30 hours and 12 minutes has the highest weekly number of hours worked per capita. The FSO explains Switzerland’s high ranking with relatively low unemployment.
A somewhat different picture emerges if weekly working hours are calculated for all employees in Switzerland. Because many people work part-time in Switzerland, the country is in this category with 35 hours and 36 minutes per employee in 23rd place among the 30 countries examined in Europe. Weekly hours of work per employee are the lowest in the Netherlands (31 hours and 36 minutes) and the highest in Greece (40 hours and 18 minutes).
Statistics show that total hours worked in Switzerland have increased since 2014. In 2019, employees in Switzerland worked 7.9 billion hours, compared to 7.6 billion in 2014. According to the FSO, the increase is mainly due to the fact that the number of jobs has also increased. The number of people employed in Switzerland increased by about 5.6 percent between 2014 and 2019.
15 minutes less than in 2014
At the same time, Swiss employees now work an average of 15 minutes less per week than in 2014. The FSO explains the reasons for this as a reduction in contractually stipulated work time by 1 minute and a reduction in weekly overtime in 8 minutes. Additionally, weekly absences have increased by 6 minutes.
The Swiss have to work less time than a few years ago. And they also have more vacations. The duration of the holidays increased from 5.1 to 5.2 weeks between 2014 and 2019, which corresponds to an increase of 0.3 days. The youngest workers between 15 and 19 years old (5.4 weeks) and over 50 years old (5.6 weeks) have the majority of vacations. Employees between the ages of 20 and 49 have the shortest vacation periods averaging 4.9 weeks. (SDA / pbe)
