Say Goodbye to the 40-Hour Work Week

If it feels like you're working constantly, you're not far off from the truth. The average work week has been getting progressively longer as time goes on. Traditionally, a full-time job demanded 40 hours a week from employees, but a recent study indicates that the new normal for Americans with a full-time gig is now about 47 hours a week.

According to a report released by Gallup at the end of August, Americans are now working an average of 46.9 hours a week. That's almost a full extra eight-hour day people are working. Additional details from the report: Barely 42 percent of workers in America are keeping to the traditional 40-hour week, 32 percent clock in at over 40 hours, and an astonishing 18 percent confess to working more than 60 hours in a single week. That adds up to more than 50 percent of Americans working above and beyond the traditional 40 hours we've become accustomed to.

"The 40-hour workweek is widely regarded as the standard for full-time employment, and many federal employment laws — including the Affordable Care Act or 'Obamacare' — use this threshold to define what a full-time employee is," the polling and research company writes in the report. "However, barely four in 10 full-time workers in the U.S. indicate they work precisely this much."

And it seems that salaried workers are the ones spending the most time earning their paycheck, devoting about 49 hours a week to their job. The increase can be explained by the fact that salaried workers aren't usually paid overtime; therefore, their employers can tax them with additional work without worrying about a dramatic increase in pay. This is the longest work week Americans have endured since 2001. Adding to complications, America is the only country with a well-established economy that doesn't institute a mandatory vacation policy. This means more time at work, and less time relaxing at home.

Some might see these longer work hours as a sign that the economy is finally recovering. Unfortunately, the statistics tell a different story; only 43 percent of workers report as being employed full-time. Before the recession, that number was at a solid 50 percent. Part-time workers have remained about the same over the past nine years, hovering at around nine percent of the adult population. So where are the rest of the adult working population of America? For the most part they remain unemployed, or underemployed. Additionally, having employees work longer hours means that fewer people have to be hired by companies. So while a lot of people are working more, plenty are still not working at all.

Now, nobody gets excited about the prospect of extra work hours, but apparently these bumped-up work weeks aren't the downer you'd expect. According to Gallup, "highly engaged workers who log well over 40 hours will still have better overall well-being than actively disengaged workers who clock out at 40 hours." Unfortunately, being highly engaged means you have to like your job at least a little. Only 13 percent of workers polled said they actually enjoyed going to work. That means roughly 87 percent of workers are miserable when they head into work every day. That's not a ringing endorsement for working conditions in America.

Will we see a return to the 40-hour work week? Or are employees destined to work progressively longer hours, and hate every extra minute of it?

[Pic via Flickr - sunshinecity]