ILO Working Hours Survey and Uncompensated Overtime

On August 31, the International Labor Organization (ILO) announced the results of its worldwide survey of annual working hours. According to the announcement, average annual working hours per worker were longest in the Republic of Korea, followed by the Czech Republic, USA, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Canada, the UK, and Germany.

Compared with the United States, average annual working hours were approximately 100 hours (equivalent to 2.5 weeks per year) shorter in Japan; approximately 250 hours (more than five weeks) shorter in the UK; and approximately 500 hours (12.5 weeks per year) shorter in Germany.

Ten years ago, Japanese workers were the hardest working in the world, working over 2000 hours per year. The biggest question then was how to reduce working hours. The latest survey by the ILO shows how far Japan has come in this respect.

On the other hand, everyone in Japan knows that many workers in Japan still put in many hours of uncompensated overtime ("service overtime"), which does not appear in these survey results. Most Japanese will take the ILO's findings with a grain of salt.

http://kilm.ilo.org/presspackage2001.asp