Employees in Serbia Work Longest Hours in Europe, According to Official Statistics

The latest data of Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Parliament), published on January 12, show that employees in Serbia, compared to their colleagues from other countries in Europe, had the most working hours in the first three quarters of 2021. The average working hours in Serbia were 43.5 a week, which only pertains to the “main” job, as these statistics do not take into account potential worker engagement outside the working hours, or, as is popularly known here, “private” working engagement.

Workers in Serbia got this dubious honor among 35 European countries for which data were collected. The shortest working time is in the Netherlands (31.2 hours), followed by Norway and Denmark, whereas, in this region, the working hours in Croatia and Slovenia are slightly below 40 a week, whereas in Romania and Bulgaria it’s slightly over 40 a week.

Data from Turkey and Montenegro have not been collected for 2021. These countries, along with Serbia, were the countries with the highest number of working hours in 2020.