Work, 'workaholic' 10% of Italians: in the office 49 hours a week

In Italy, almost one in ten workers between the ages of 20 and 64 worked an average of at least 49 hours a week in 2023, a percentage higher than the EU average (7.1%) and lower only than that of Greece, France and Cyprus. Practically the equivalent of an extra day per week considering that standard working hours in many cases range between 36 and 40 hours per week.

This can be read in the Eurostat tables on workers working long hours, from which it emerges that the figure is linked to the size of the self-employed, who traditionally work longer hours than the total average number of workers (29.3% of the self-employed as a whole work at least 49 hours). In our country, employees working at least 49 hours per week on average are 3.8% (3.6% in the EU) while the self-employed with employees working these hours are 46% of the total (41.7% the EU average).

The self-employed with no employees working 49 hours per week are 27.4% (23.6% in the EU), while those engaged in a job helping the family activity reaching 49 hours are 20.1% (14% in the EU).

The percentage of 'workaholics' rises if we look only at men, with 12.9% of all employed working at least 49 hours a week (9.9% in the EU). Among the self-employed with employees the percentage exceeds 50% in Italy (50.8%) and stands at 46.3% in the EU.