Many countries regulate the work week by law, such as stipulating minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays, and a maximum number of working hours per week. Working time may vary from person to person, often depending on economic conditions, location, culture, lifestyle choice, and the profitability of the individual's livelihood. For example, someone who is supporting children and paying a large mortgage might need to work more hours to meet basic costs of living than someone of the same earning power with lower housing costs. As the length of the workweek gradually declined, political agitation for shorter hours seems to have waned for the next two decades.
However, immediately after the Civil War reductions in the length of the workweek reemerged as an important issue for organized labor. Roediger argues that many of the new ideas about shorter hours grew out of the abolitionists' critique of slavery — that long hours, like slavery, stunted aggregate demand in the economy. The hub of the newly launched movement was Boston and Grand Eight Hours Leagues sprang up around the country in 1865 and 1866. The leaders of the movement called the meeting of the first national organization to unite workers of different trades, the National Labor Union, which met in Baltimore in 1867. The passage of the state laws did foment action by workers — especially in Chicago where parades, a general strike, rioting and martial law ensued. In only a few places did work hours fall after the passage of these laws.
Many become disillusioned with the idea of using the government to promote shorter hours and by the late 1860s, efforts to push for a universal eight-hour day had been put on the back burner. Eastern European immigrants worked significantly longer than others, as did people in industries whose output varied considerably from season to season. High unionization and strike levels reduced hours to a small degree. The average female employee worked about six and a half fewer hours per week in 1919 than did the average male employee. In city-level comparisons, state maximum hours laws appear to have had little affect on average work hours, once the influences of other factors have been taken into account. One possibility is that these laws were passed only after economic forces lowered the length of the workweek.
Overall, in cities where wages were one percent higher, hours were about -0.13 to -0.05 percent lower. Again, this suggests that during the era of declining hours, workers were willing to use higher wages to "buy" shorter hours. The long-term decline in the length of the workweek, in this view, has primarily been due to increased economic productivity, which has yielded higher wages for workers. Workers responded to this rise in potential income by "buying" more leisure time, as well as by buying more goods and services.
In a recent survey, a sizeable majority of economic historians agreed with this view. Over eighty percent accepted the proposition that "the reduction in the length of the workweek in American manufacturing before the Great Depression was primarily due to economic growth and the increased wages it brought" . For example, roughly two-thirds of economic historians surveyed rejected the proposition that the efforts of labor unions were the primary cause of the drop in work hours before the Great Depression.
Hong Kong has no legislation regarding maximum and normal working hours. The average weekly working hours of full-time employees in Hong Kong is 49 hours. In Hong Kong, 70% of surveyed do not receive any overtime remuneration. These show that people in Hong Kong concerns the working time issues. As Hong Kong implemented the minimum wage law in May 2011, the Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, of the Special Administrative Region pledged that the government will standardize working hours in Hong Kong. The relevant international labour standards set a limit on normal (pre-overtime) hours of 8 per day and 48 hours per week.
The 8 hour day may be exceeded in the case of shift work, provided that the average number of hours over a 3 week period does not exceed 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Labor markets became very tight during World War I as the demand for workers soared and the unemployment rate plunged. These forces put workers in a strong bargaining position, which they used to obtain shorter work schedules. The move to shorter hours was also pushed by the federal government, which gave unprecedented support to unionization.
The federal government began to intervene in labor disputes for the first time, and the National War Labor Board "almost invariably awarded the basic eight-hour day when the question of hours was at issue" in labor disputes . At the end of the war everyone wondered if organized labor would maintain its newfound power and the crucial test case was the steel industry. These abnormally long hours were the subject of much denunciation and a major issue in a strike that began in September 1919. The strike failed (and organized labor's power receded during the 1920s), but four years later US Steel reduced its workday from twelve to eight hours. The move came after much arm-twisting by President Harding but its timing may be explained by immigration restrictions and the loss of immigrant workers who were willing to accept such long hours . The movement for shorter hours as a depression-fighting work-sharing measure built such a seemingly irresistible momentum that by 1933 observers predicting that the "30-hour week was within a month of becoming federal law" .
Hunnicutt argues that an implicit deal was struck in the NIRA. Labor leaders were persuaded by NIRA Section 7a's provisions — which guaranteed union organization and collective bargaining — to support the NIRA rather than the Black-Connery Thirty-Hour Bill. Business, with the threat of thirty hours hanging over its head, fell raggedly into line. Despite a plan by NRA Administrator Hugh Johnson to make blanket provisions for a thirty-five hour workweek in all industry codes, by late August 1933, the momentum toward the thirty-hour week had dissipated. About half of employees covered by NRA codes had their hours set at forty per week and nearly 40 percent had workweeks longer than forty hours. California employees may file a wage and hour lawsuit against employers for denying rest breaks or failure to pay overtime as required under California labor laws.
Successful wage and hour class action lawsuits often involve failure to provide meal breaks, rest periods, or failure to pay overtime. California wage and hour lawrequires employers to pay overtime when nonexempt employees work over a certain amount of hours in the workday or workweek. California labor laws also require employers to provide meal and rest breaks over the course of the workday. At the same time, the hours of agricultural workers may actually increase (due to more labor-intensive practices such as dairy farming). A surplus of labor in manufacturing leads to low pay and long hours, as manufacturers dictate work conditions.
Gas lighting in factories enables employers to lengthen the workweek by extending long summer hours into winter. Factory workers regularly put in 12-hour days and 68-hour workweeks. By 1840 the workweek in the major mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts averages 74 hours.
Around the world, the average workweek can range from less than 40 hours to close to 50 hours. Workweek length varies greatly from one industry to another and from one country to the next. Those countries with a cultural emphasis on work/life balance and adequate leisure/family time generally have shorter official workweeks and more vacation days. These countries also trend toward more generous overtime compensation, more worker-friendly regulations, more favorable parental leave laws, and an increased chance of landing on the list of the world's happiest countries.
By comparison, those countries with longer workweeks, fewer worker protections. And reduced amenities tend to have lower life satisfaction and rank as less happy overall. Singapore has an 8-hour normal work day , a 44-hour normal working week, and a maximum 48-hour work week.
If the employee works no more than five days a week, the employee's normal working day is 9 hours and the working week is 44 hours. Also, if the number of hours worked by the worker is less than 44 hours every alternate week, the 44-hour weekly limit may be exceeded in the other week. However, this is subject to the pre-specification in the service contract, and the maximum should not exceed 48 hours per week or 88 hours in any consecutive two week period. In addition, a shift worker can work up to 12 hours a day, provided that the average working hours per week do not exceed 44 over a consecutive three-week period. The overtime allowance per overtime hour must not be less than 1.5 times the employee's hourly basic rates. The swift reduction of the workweek in the period around World War I has been extensively analyzed by Whaples .
His findings support the consensus that economic growth was the key to reduced work hours. He finds that the rapid economic expansion of the World War I period, which pushed up real wages by more than 18 percent between 1914 and 1919, explains about half of the drop in the length of the workweek. The reduction of immigration during the war was important, as it deprived employers of a group of workers who were willing to put in long hours, explaining about one-fifth of the hours decline. The rapid electrification of manufacturing seems also to have played an important role in reducing the workweek.
Increased unionization explains about one-seventh of the reduction, and federal and state legislation and policies that mandated reduced workweeks also had a noticeable role. During the 1920s agitation for shorter workdays largely disappeared, now that the workweek had fallen to about 50 hours. However, pressure arose to grant half-holidays on Saturday or Saturday off — especially in industries whose workers were predominantly Jewish. By 1927 at least 262 large establishments had adopted the five-day week, while only 32 had it by 1920.
The most notable action was Henry Ford's decision to adopt the five-day week in 1926. Ford employed more than half of the nation's approximately 400,000 workers with five-day weeks. However, Ford's motives were questioned by many employers who argued that productivity gains from reducing hours ceased beyond about forty-eight hours per week.
Even the reformist American Labor Legislation Review greeted the call for a five-day workweek with lukewarm interest. A new cadre of social scientists began to offer evidence that long hours produced health-threatening, productivity-reducing fatigue. This line of reasoning, advanced in the court brief of Louis Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark, was crucial in the Supreme Court's decision to support state regulation of women's hours in Muller vs. Oregon. In addition, data relating to hours and output among British and American war workers during World War I helped convince some that long hours could be counterproductive.
Businessmen, however, frequently attacked the shorter hours movement as merely a ploy to raise wages, since workers were generally willing to work overtime at higher wage rates. The banner years for maximum hours legislation were right around 1910. This may have been partly a reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling upholding female-hours legislation in the Muller vs. Oregon case . The Court's rulings were not always completely consistent during this period, however.
In 1898 the Court upheld a maximum eight-hour day for workmen in the hazardous industries of mining and smelting in Utah in Holden vs. Hardy. In Lochner vs. New York , it rejected as unconstitutional New York's ten-hour day for bakers, which was also adopted out of concerns for safety. The defendant showed that mortality rates in baking were only slightly above average, and lower than those for many unregulated occupations, arguing that this was special interest legislation, designed to favor unionized bakers. Several state courts, on the other hand, supported laws regulating the hours of men in only marginally hazardous work.
By 1917, in Bunting vs. Oregon, the Supreme Court seemingly overturned the logic of the Lochner decision, supporting a state law that required overtime payment for all men working long hours. Men were allowed freedom of contract unless it could be proven that regulating their hours served a higher good for the population at large. When Samuel Slater built the first textile mills in the U.S., "workers labored from sun up to sun down in summer and during the darkness of both morning and evening in the winter.
Only attracted attention when they exceeded the common working day of twelve hours," according to Ware . This agitation was led by Sarah Bagley and the New England Female Labor Reform Association, which, beginning in 1845, petitioned the state legislature to intervene in the determination of hours. The petitions were followed by America's first-ever examination of labor conditions by a governmental investigating committee. The Massachusetts legislature proved to be very unsympathetic to the workers' demands, but similar complaints led to the passage of laws in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania , declaring ten hours to be the legal length of the working day.
However, these laws also specified that a contract freely entered into by employee and employer could set any length for the workweek. Legislation passed by the federal government had a more direct, though limited effect. On March 31, 1840, President Martin Van Buren issued an executive order mandating a ten-hour day for all federal employees engaged in manual work. Because of changing definitions and data sources there does not exist a consistent series of workweek estimates covering the entire twentieth century. Despite differences among the series, there is a fairly consistent pattern, with weekly hours falling considerably during the first third of the century and much more slowly thereafter. In particular, hours fell strongly during the years surrounding World War I, so that by 1919 the eight-hour day had been won.
Hours fell sharply at the beginning of the Great Depression, especially in manufacturing, then rebounded somewhat and peaked during World War II. After World War II, the length of the workweek stabilized around forty hours. Owen's nonstudent-male series shows little trend after World War II, but the other series show a slow, but steady, decline in the length of the average workweek. Greis's two series are based on the average length of the workyear and adjust for paid vacations, holidays and other time-off. The last column is based on information reported by individuals in the decennial censuses and in the Current Population Survey of 1988. It may be the most accurate and representative series, as it is based entirely on the responses of individuals rather than employers. The government under Hoover urges voluntary reduction of hours, saving 3 – 5 million jobs.
Major businesses such as Sears Roebuck, General Motors and Standard Oil also shorten their workweek as an alternative to laying off employees. The idea of shorter hours, and a 30-hour workweek, gains momentum from industrialists, labor, and local and national politicians of both parties. Hong Kong Catholic Commission For Labour Affairs urges the government to legislate the standard working hours in Hong Kong, and suggests a 44 hours standard, 54 hours maximum working hours in a week. The Autonomy report has also generated global interest at a time when workers and companies alike are rethinking what jobs should look like. For example, the shift to remote work over the last 15 months has shown that "quite drastic changes in working practices can happen quite quickly," Kellam said.
Now his work on the Iceland trials has gotten news coverage in countries from Australia to Germany, and several companies have approached Autonomy for advice on implementing shorter hours for their employees. The length of the workweek, like other labor market outcomes, is determined by the interaction of the supply and demand for labor. On the other hand, longer hours can bring reduced productivity due to worker fatigue and can bring worker demands for higher hourly wages to compensate for putting in long hours. If they set the workweek too high, workers may quit and few workers will be willing to work for them at a competitive wage rate.
Thus, workers implicitly choose among a variety of jobs — some offering shorter hours and lower earnings, others offering longer hours and higher earnings. Massachusetts' first hours law in 1874 set sixty hours per week as the legal maximum for women, in 1892 this was cut to 58, in 1908 to 56, and in 1911 to 54. By 1900, 26 percent of states had maximum hours laws covering women, children and, in some, adult men . The percentage of states with maximum hours laws climbed to 58 percent in 1910, 76 percent in 1920, and 84 percent in 1930.
Steinberg calculates that the percent of employees covered climbed from 4 percent nationally in 1900, to 7 percent in 1910, and 12 percent in 1920 and 1930. In addition, these laws became more restrictive with the average legal standard falling from a maximum of 59.3 hours per week in 1900 to 56.7 in 1920. According to her calculations, in 1900 about 16 percent of the workers covered by these laws were adult men, 49 percent were adult women and the rest were minors. Yip Siu-fai, Professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of HKU, has noted that professions such as nursing and accountancy have long working hours and that this may affect people's social life.
He believes that standard working hours could help to give Hong Kong more family-friendly workplaces and to increase fertility rates. Randy Chiu, Professor of the Department of Management of HKBU, has said that introducing standard working hours could avoid excessively long working hours of employees. Beyond regular working hours, it is legal to demand up to 12 hours of overtime during the week, plus another 16 hours on weekends. The 40-hour workweek expanded to companies with 300 employees or more in 2005, 100 employees or more in 2006, 50 or more in 2007, 20 or more in 2008 and a full inclusion to all workers nationwide in July 2011. The government has continuously increased public holidays to 16 days in 2013, more than the 10 days of the United States and double that of the United Kingdom's 8 days.
Despite those efforts, South Korea's work hours are still relatively long, with an average 1,967 hours per year in 2019. Several countries have adopted a workweek from Monday morning until Friday noon, either due to religious rules or the growing predominance of a 35–37.5 hour workweek in continental Europe. Several Muslim countries have a standard Sunday through Thursday or Saturday through Wednesday workweek leaving Friday for religious observance, and providing breaks for the daily prayer times. Some government services have a modified schedule that provides evening hours on at least one day a week, for the convenience of constituents, at the expense of regular business hours elsewhere in the week.
