EAE Business School has published the survey “Productivity at work and work life balance”, which makes an international comparison of phenomenon such as absenteeism, presentism, and productivity regarding hours of work; workdays, and flexibility, and balance in the full development of the person.  

The report of EAE Business School shows that, within the European Union, Greece is the country with the greater number of hours worked (2,035 hours), while Germany (1,363 hours), Denmark (1,410 hours) and Norway (1,424 hours) are countries that devote the least time to work.

Among Latin American countries, Mexico and Costa Rica have the largest number of working hours (2,255 and 2,212 respectively). As regards Spanish workers, they have an average of 1,695 hours per person.

Nonetheless, working more hours does not mean have greater productivity, as claims the report. For every hour worked, Norway is the country with greatest productivity (79%) and the third that works the least. It is followed by Switzerland, with 57.9% productivity, and Denmark, with 55.3%.

Despite being the EU country with the most working hours, Greece’s productivity is around 19.9%. A similar phenomenon occurs in Spain, which has 31.5% productivity regardless of the fact that it works 1,695 hours.

Finally, among OECD countries with the longest working weeks (over 50 hours worked), Spain is number 15 of the 38 countries analyzed, with 4.55% of the population working this extremely long periods. In Europe, except for the UK, the percentage of the population that works numerous hours barely beats 10%. From a gender perspective, around 16% of men in this countries work long working weeks, while around women the percentage is around 8%.

“Spanish people believe that work-life balance is the second most important element when choosing a company to work for. This benefit has kept this place for the second year in a row, followed by a proper wage and social benefits”, concludes the report.