Jedlicka and Miskova: Reports on the reduction of the working week in Europe are confusing. Often, people end up working more hours instead

Tuesday, Aug 5, 2025

Examines working hours across Europe, highlighting Czech overtime issues and trends like part-time work and burnout.

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[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

The article discusses working hours and labor trends across Europe, noting that Czech workers spend more time at work than Germans, while Dutch workers have among the fewest hours worked in the EU, and the European trend is towards shorter workweeks. Experts caution that lower statistics can be due to an increase in part-time roles, particularly for women after childbirth or retirees, and that informal work outside official hours is often not fully accounted for. In the Czech Republic, average weekly working hours are 37.8, with challenges like mandatory overtime, especially among doctors, despite legislative changes. The country lags behind Western Europe in part-time employment rates due to its industrial focus. While some countries experiment with a four-day workweek, discussions also touch upon younger generations prioritizing work-life balance and meaning over traditional career progression. Other countries face different labor issues, such as overtime disputes in Lithuania or high working hours in Greece, which is sometimes misinterpreted by external narratives.


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