Week 7, 2013: International Working Hours Comparison

Summary: Most recent explanations for the UK's "productivity puzzle" have pointed to the rise of underemployment, where employees have been asked to work less hours rather than lose their job. According to ONS figures, a fall in average working hours in the UK, consistent with this theory, has been going on since 2007.

What does the chart show? The chart shows an index of the average annual hours per worker for each of the G7 countries since 2007, with 2007 as the base year (equal to 100). The index only shows the change within each country over time, and not any direct comparison between total average working hours in each (but for the record, the US and Italy work the longest hours, followed by Japan and Canada, and then the UK, and finally Germany and France).

Why is the chart interesting? The chart shows the international decline in average working hours since the peak in 2007 (except for France and Germany, the two countries with the shortest average working hours, where the peak was in 2008).  For six of the G7, the trough came in 2009.  However, in the UK the decline continued beyond that, with the sharpest drop coming in 2011 (when there was an increase for most other countries).  Although we don't yet have data for 2012, with low productivity continuing throughout last year blamed largely on underemployment, it is fairly safe to assume that average working hours continued to decrease.  

That may very well mean that by now, the UK has suffered the largest drop in working hours in the G7, and while a cut in working hours is certainly preferable to unemployment, it does have negative implications for living standards.