Workplace like second home. Poles have the longest working hours in Europe
Economist Michał Możdżeń published data on the working time of individual nations in Europe. Polish women and men are the most hard-working people in Europe.
On November 6 Michał Możdzeń from the Cracow University of Economics published an analysis of working time in Europe. He based his calculations on the data sourced from AMECO. This is a macro-economic database consisting information on the labour market collected by the European Commission.
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Polish women and men have the longest working hours
Możdżeń's analysis shows that Polish women and men spend more than 2,000 hours a year at work. This is more than any other nation in Europe. What is more, even after reducing this time by 20%, i.e. after, for example, the introduction of the 4-day working week, Poland would still be closer to the top than France, the Netherlands, and Germany, among others, exceeding the European average.
There have been comments that one of the reasons for this situation is the low popularity of part-time work in our country. But Możdżeń replied that even residents of Lithuania, Romania or Bulgaria, where equally few people work part-time, are less busy than Poles.
Asked about the reasons for such a high number of hours worked, Możdzeń pointed to overtime, many self-employed people and not using paid vacation days. "Maybe before introducing a 4-day working week, it would be nice if someone introduced an 8-hour working day in Poland?" ironically commented one person.
The phrase "People don't want to work" does not describe reality in Poland
The comments also included statements from "labour market experts" arguing that "people don’t want to work" and that "the government should find a way to encourage them to".
One of X users responded: "We have the lowest unemployment rate in history at the moment. Who else do you want to inspire? Old people and pre-schoolers?" Indeed, unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2023 was only 2.6%.
The narrative of huge numbers of people living at the state's expense holds very well in Poland, despite the fact that it has no grounding in reality. It is all the more difficult to understand that attempts to survive just on the benefits available in our country do not mean that people receiving them live in luxury. According to data provided by Możdżeń, Polish women and men work the most among all Europeans.
