Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Pixabay 13:42 p.m., December 06, 2023

According to a study published Wednesday by the Rexecode institute on the basis of European statistics, annual working hours are shorter in France than in most European countries. A full-time employee in France works 65 hours less than in Spain and up to 162 hours less than in Italy.

Annual working hours are shorter in France than in most European countries, especially for full-time employees, according to a study published Wednesday by the Rexecode institute based on European statistics. The average annual working time reported by full-time employees, questioned by Eurostat's Labour Force Survey, is 1,668 hours, compared with a European average of 1,792 hours. According to this survey, a full-time employee in France works 65 hours less than in Spain, 122 hours less than in Germany and 162 hours less than in Italy.

Rexecode notes that these differences have been fairly stable since 2005, except for the one with Germany, "where the annual actual working time decreased between 2006 and 2019, while remaining well above the duration in France". The difference of three weeks for French and German full-time employees is explained for a third by a shorter weekly working time of one hour in France, for almost a third by sick leave (2.1 weeks in France compared to 1.2 in Germany) and for the rest by leave.

More full-time employees in Germany and Northern European countries

However, the actual working time of all employees, which includes part-time employees, is slightly higher in France than in Germany, the proportion of full-time employees being higher than in Germany and the countries of Northern Europe. It is thus 1,550 hours in France, against 1,529 hours in Germany, Spain (1,615 hours) and Italy (1,685 hours) remaining above.

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Part-time employees also work an average of 971 hours per year in France, i.e. 58% of full-time work, compared with 923 hours in Germany (52% full-time). "This slightly longer working time" of all categories of employees in France "coexists with a lower employment rate" and "part-time work more suffered than in other countries," Olivier Redoulès, director of studies at Rexecode, told AFP.