Analysis of Working Time Trends: Luxembourg’s Alignment with European Countries Revealed by Recent Data

To compare the evolution of working time in Luxembourg with other European countries, and to do so with recent data, the data from the national accounts is the most appropriate. They cover the period up to 2022 and take into account two variables:

• The number of hours worked by all employees
• Domestic salaried employment (in number of people)

The ratio of these two variables (hours worked/employment) expresses the average length of working time per employee.

In many European countries, including Luxembourg, there has been a downward trend in the number of hours worked:

Average working hours (in hours per year)

Source: Eurostat (national accounts) 

For most countries, there was a sharp decrease in working hours in two years in particular: 2009 and 2020. 2009 marked by the consequences of the financial crisis (this episode was also referred to as the ‘Great Recession’) and 2020 by the health crisis linked to COVID-19. There was also a relatively sharp fall in France between 2000 and 2002, coinciding with the reduction in the legal working week from 39 to 35 hours.

In 2022, average working hours vary considerably between European countries, with a maximum of 1 1 998 hours per year in Poland and a minimum of 1 295 hours in Germany. Luxembourg, at 1 483 hours, is close to the Eurozone average (1 466 hours).

Average annual working time by country in 2022

Source: Eurostat (national accounts) 

If we now look at changes in working hours over the whole of the reference period (1995-2022) or over the last 5 years (2018-2022), we can still see large differences between countries, although the dominant trend is downwards. In both cases, Luxembourg shows a decline in working hours very similar to that observed in the eurozone:

• 7.8% decline from 1995 to 2022 (compared with -6.8% in the Eurozone)
• Down by 1.6% from 2018 to 2022 (compared with -1.7% in the Eurozone)

Graph 1 – Changes in working hours between 1995 and 2022

Graph 2 – Changes in working hours between 2018 et 2022

Source: Eurostat (national accounts) 

Data from the survey about the level and structure of labour costs is also often used as a reference for international comparisons of working hours. In particular, they make it possible to compare working hours for employees working full time only. However, these data have the disadvantage of only being published every 4 years. The latest data available is for 2020, so it is not very recent, and is also affected by the consequences of the health crisis, which may make problems of comparability (bearing in mind that the various countries have experienced more or less strict confinements, more or less recourse to short-time working, etc.). For many countries, including Luxembourg, they only cover companies with more than 10 employees. Finally, these surveys are carried out among companies in industry, construction and services (with the exception of public administration, defense and compulsory social security). It should also be noted that for Luxembourg, this data is used to determine the level of hours worked in the national accounts (for years when there is no survey, they are interpolated based on administrative data from the IGSS).

The table below shows the average working hours obtained from this survey, for employees working full-time:

Annual working hours for full-time employees

Average annual hours actually worked per employee

Source: Eurostat (national accounts)