The OECD published a table on how much people in the developed countries work on an annual basis (hours per year). A couple of things struck me about the table. First, a number of countries are ahead of the US. Some of that can be explained by the presence of the informal economy. But I suspect some of it could also be explained by other factors. For example, how much does the presence of information technology increase or decrease employment hours? Second, there must be a correlation between tax systems and hours worked. Make the system either complex or with high rates and people will work less. Obviously the number of public holidays has something to do with these numbers but the correlation is not exact. South Korea has 10, the US 8 and Mexico 14.
The data suggests that Americans are working less than they did (by about three days). The OECD data also suggests that countries move toward the median in things like this. What interests me about this is that there are plenty of possible explanations which is why these kinds of things happen. The best news is that information like this allows plenty of work hours for economists!
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Those numbers look mighty suspicious. A standard 40 hour work week with 2 weeks vacation is 2000 hours. And many people work multiple jobs, or otherwise work more than 40 hours a week. Are these statistics counting people who are unemployed? People who are retired and work a couple hours a week? People in college who don't have full time jobs? What are the requirements for being counted in this study?
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