THERE WAS A modicum of surprise last week at stats released by the UK Office for National Statistics last week on the average hours worked by member countries of the EU.
Contrary to stereotypes perpetuated by certain EU leaders during the eurozone crisis, Greece turned out to have the longest average working week of any of the 27 EU states. Ireland came 25th in the list at 35 hours when both full and part-time workers are taken into account (the EU average is 37.4 hours). Germany came just one place above us, at number 24.
Some of TheJournal.ie’s readers commented on the fact that hours do not measure the productivity rate of workers. Niall Togher said:
We might not work the longest hours ever, but we are far more productive at work, and that’s what really counts!
As it turns out, Niall Togher and those readers who agreed with him were right. Eurostat has a table breaking down the actual rate of productivity and Ireland comes FIFTH on that. Our productivity per hour, the office says, is 125.6 (the average is 100).
This is the table:
The exact rate of productivity per hour for each of the top 20 rated countries is:
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say