Work — Weekly Hours Worked

Relevance

The amount of time spent at work affects the time available for other activities, such as rest, caring for family members, learning, leisure or volunteering. At the same time, it affects  earnings and contributes to economic productivity.

Summary

• National Picture — In 2009, employed Canadians spent an average of 36.0 hours per week at work.
• Gender — On average men spent more hours per week at work (39.0 hours) than women (33.2 hours) in 2009.
• Age — Compared to other age groups, youth aged 15 to 24 spent the least time at work in 2009, working 28.1 hours on average per week.
• Regions — In 2009, weekly hours of work varied between 35.2 in Quebec and 38.2 in Newfoundland and Labrador.
• Percent of Time Spent Working — In 2009, approximately 10% of the total time available to all Canadians was devoted to paid work.

National Picture

In 2009, employed Canadians were working fewer hours on average each week compared to three decades earlier. Canadians worked 36.0 hours per week on average which was down from 38.0 in 1976.

Gender

On average, men spent more than six hours per week (39.0) at work than women (32.7) in 2009.

Between 1976 and 2009, the number of weekly hours declined for men and remained the same for women. On average, in 2009, men spent 132 minutes less at work than in 1976.

Age

Canadian youth spend the least amount of time working each week compared to other age groups. In 2009, employed youth aged 15 to 24 worked on average 28.1 hours each week, which was almost 10 fewer hours than employed individuals aged 25 to 54 (37.9 hours).

Individuals aged 55 to 64 worked on average 36.2 hours per week, whereas employed individuals 65 years of age and above worked on average 30.9 hours a week in 2009.

Regions

Newfoundland and Labrador residents work the longest hours on average each week compared to the residents of other provinces. In 2009, people living in Newfoundland and Labrador worked on average 38.2 hours per week, which is 2.2 hours longer than the national average of 36.0 hours. They were followed closely by residents of Saskatchewan (37.7) and Alberta (37.5). Residents of Quebec spent the least time in the workplace in 2009 with an average work week of 35.2 hours.

Percent of Time Spent Working

Another way of showing how much time Canadians spend working is to measure how many hours a year Canadians spend at paid work compared to the total number of hours available to them in a year (365 days x 24 hours x total population). This provides a measure of how much paid work time is used to support and sustain the whole society.

In 2009, of all the time available to Canadians, 9.7% of this time was spent on paid work. This is an increase of about 1.0% since 1976 when approximately 8.7% of all available time was spent on paid work.

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• Average Weekly Hours Worked

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