In Switzerland, employees work an average of 36 hours per week.Image: keystone
The effective working hours vary greatly from country to country. New figures show: Switzerland is slightly below the European average.
May 22, 2026, 4:46 p.mMay 22, 2026, 4:46 p.m
Last year, over eight million hours were worked in Switzerland, as the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) announced on Thursday. Although the number has been increasing for some time, it has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels. Compared to 2019, Swiss employees worked around 50 minutes less per week.
Is that a lot? A look at other European countries helps with the classification. In 2025, European employees worked an average of 37 hours and 40 minutes per week, Eurostat reports. This number includes both full-time and part-time employees.
translation
This text was written by our colleagues from French-speaking Switzerland and we translated it for you.
However, the situation differs significantly from country to country, as the map below shows:
In general, the Nordic countries have the lowest values, while the countries in the southeast record the highest numbers.
Working people in the Netherlands have it best: their effective working hours are 30 hours and 40 minutes per week, seven hours less than the European average. Denmark and Norway complete the podium with around 33 hours of work per week.
More than 40 hours per week
At the other end of the scale are Turkey, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In these countries, employees work on average over 40, sometimes even 42, hours per week. With the exception of Estonia, all countries of the former Eastern Bloc have high values.
And Switzerland? Our country is roughly in the middle of the ranking, with an effective working time of 36 hours per week. This is slightly less than the European average and roughly comparable to the values in Italy and France. Our German-speaking neighbors, on the other hand, are significantly lower: German and Austrian employees work an average of two hours less per week than Swiss employees.
Self-employed people work significantly more
Also noticeable: self-employed people often work more than employees. The European average is 39 hours per week – almost three hours more than for employees.
In some countries the difference is even greater. In Belgium, self-employed people work on average almost nine hours more per week than employees.
In Switzerland the difference is significantly smaller: the effective working time of self-employed people is 36 hours and 40 minutes per week – around 40 minutes more than for employees. In some countries such as Latvia, Cyprus and Lithuania, self-employed people even work slightly less than employees. (asi)
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