According to a joint study from the German Research Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA), ‘Hours Worked in Europe and the US: New Data, New Answers’, Americans work 258 hours more than EU citizens, which on a per day basis, results in an hour of overtime for Americans.

The study, put together by German and American economists, also shows that US citizens rarely go on holiday and retire later than their European counterparts. The study looked at how many hours both American and EU citizens work every day along with periods of leave, unemployment, and retirement.

On this basis, the IZA determined that Germans have an average working week of 20.2 hours, with citizens of Poland with 19.8, in Belgium with 19.4, France with 19.3 and Italy having the lowest with 18.4 hours per week. On this basis, Americans spend an average of 26.1 hours per week in the office. The study did not factor in part-time jobs in many of the countries.