Who works the longest hours in Europe?
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the Office for National Statistics seems to be on a mission to rescue us from our own prejudices. New data published this morning shows that Greek workers actually put in longer hours than anyone else in Europe — 42.2 per week, compared to just 35.6 in Germany. If you look at full-time figures, it is even starker.
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Posted by Heather Stewart
Thursday 8 December
''Guardian''
Posted by Heather Stewart
Thursday 8 December
''Guardian''
GREECE: Le bouc-émissaire
As Europe's leaders gather to discuss how to rescue the mediterranean economies and safeguard the single currency, it's tempting to resort to crude national stereotypes of prudent, hard-working Germans and lazy Greeks.
But the Office for National Statistics seems to be on a mission to rescue us from our own prejudices. New data published this morning shows that Greek workers actually put in longer hours than anyone else in Europe — 42.2 per week, compared to just 35.6 in Germany. If you look at full-time figures, it is even starker.
There are the usual caveats about the reliability of Greek statistics; but that looks like too large a gap to be explained away by dodgy number-crunching. With youth unemployment at 43.5%, Greeks these days must feel lucky to hold on to a job at all; but the news that they've been grafting away, helps to explain why the Greek general public don't feel they should be blamed for causing the crisis.
Hint:
it's not Germany.
Find out how many hours people work in different jobs and across the EU
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