Asian countries lead in burning the midnight oil: ILO report

A BBC News report, written by Fernando Duarte, has said that the average working week varies depending where you live in the world. So, which countries are “burning the midnight oil”? In March, South Korea’s National Assembly passed a law that will give a substantial amount of its workforce a well-deserved break.  

It is the developed nation with the longest working hours, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This new law will come into force in July 2018, although initially it will only apply to large companies before reaching smaller businesses. 

S Korea has currently longer working hours than any other developed country: an average 2,069 hours per year, per worker, according to 2016 data compiled by the OECD. The analysis covered 38 countries and showed that only Mexicans (2,225 hours/year) and Costa Ricans (2,212 hours/year) worked longer hours. 

South Koreans bucked a global trend: studies carried out by the International Labor Organisation (ILO) show that lower and middle-income countries tend to work longer hours than their richer counterparts, due to factors that range from the proportion of self-employed workers in the labour force to lower wages, job insecurity and cultural issues. 

The average of 1,713 hours worked per year in Japan is not among the highest in the OECD list, but beyond the number, there is the grim reality that the country has no legislation at all stipulating a maximum weekly hours limit and neither overtime limit. 

ILO’s recent figures say, Asia is a continent where more people work the longest hours: most of the countries (32 per cent) have no universal national limit for maximum weekly working hours and another 29% have high thresholds (60 weekly hours or more). 

And only 4 per cent of the countries abide by the ILO recommendations and set the international labour standards of a maximum of 48 hours or fewer for the working week. Surveys have also identified cities in terms of average hours. 

In 2016, Swiss Bank UBS released an analysis of 71 cities that showed Hong Kong with an average of 50.1 weekly working hours, ahead of Mumbai (43.7), Mexico City (43.5), New Delhi (42.6) and Bangkok (42.1). 

It could be worse, though. In India, where there is no universal national limit for maximum working hours, workers do not have a guaranteed minimum amount of annual leave.