A study has been released indicating that the French work fewer hours than any other European country. Something to celebrate?
Two-hour lunch breaks, plentiful paid holidays, a 35-hour work week… Other nations are always quick to judge France for being lazy and never wanting to work (maybe out of jealousy..?)
But it seems a new study comes out every other day that only seems to reinforce these stereotypes.
Full-time salaried workers in France put in 1,646 hours in 2015, according to the latest study by Eurostat and Coe-Rexecode. That’s 199 fewer hours than the Germans, 130 fewer than the Italians, and 228 fewer than the Brits.
Until a couple years ago, it was the Finnish who claimed the fantastic/dubious honor of working the fewest hours in Europe, but the French overtook them in 2014.
Between 2013 and 2015, the gap in working hours only widened between France and its European neighbors, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, and Germany.
But this most recent study is certainly not the first to single out the French for being the least-hard working of the Europeans.
A study released just last month named Paris and Lyon as the two cities with the shortest work weeks out of 71 major world cities.
French workers just can’t catch a break. Or they are taking too many of them.
However this could all change of course if the French government’s unpopular labour reforms come into law as they are designed to allow companies to make the length of the working week far more flexible.
Read more at: http://www.thelocal.fr/20160616/france-works-fewest-hours-in-eu-says-yet-another-study