Swiss now work less than 40 hours a week full-time

Those in the primary sector – such as farming – work longer hours than most. © Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

The total amount of hours worked in Switzerland increased by 1.3% between 2021 and 2022 and are now back to pre-pandemic levels.

In the country of around nine million inhabitants, some 7.92 billion hours were worked in 2022, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) said on Monday.

The uptick last year was due to a 1.5% increase in the number of jobs, a rise which was partially compensated by a decrease in the actual annual working time per job (-0.2%).

+ Read more: ‘we can afford to work less’

Indeed, average weekly working hours of full-time employees (excluding self-employed) fell by almost an hour between 2017 and 2022, to 39 hours and 59 minutes.

According to the FSO, the reasons for this were contractually agreed shortening of hours, as well as an increase in absences; in 2022, health-related absences increased by eleven hours to 64 hours per job.

Holidays also increased from 5.1 to 5.2 weeks on average per year.

Big differences exist across sectors: full-time employees in the primary sector worked just under 45 hours per week, for example, while those in the “real estate/other economic services” and in the hospitality industry worked just over 39 hours weekly.