Romania among EU countries with the longest working weeks, Eurostat data shows

Romanians are among the Europeans with the highest number of weekly working hours, according to data published by Eurostat on Wednesday, May 27. On average, Romanians worked 38.2 hours a week in 2025, compared to the EU average of 35.9 hours.

In the ranking of member states, the longest working weeks were recorded in Greece (39.6 hours), Bulgaria and Poland (38.7 hours), Lithuania (38.4 hours), and Romania. Overall, the EU average weekly working hours decreased from 36.9 hours registered in 2015.

At the opposite end, the shortest working weeks were recorded in the Netherlands (31.9 hours), followed by Denmark and Germany (33.9 hours) and Austria (34 hours).

Significant differences can also be observed between men and women. At the EU level, men worked an average of 39.4 hours per week, while women worked 37.6 hours.

Among women, the longest working weeks were recorded in Slovenia (39.2 hours), Lithuania (39.1 hours), as well as Latvia and Poland (38.9 hours), while the shortest were in the Netherlands (35 hours), Finland (35.6 hours), Ireland (35.9 hours), and Belgium (36.4 hours).

For men, only four states exceeded the threshold of 40 weekly hours: Greece (41.8 hours), Poland (40.6 hours), Slovenia (40.2 hours), and Cyprus (40 hours). The shortest working durations were in Finland and the Netherlands (38.4 hours), followed by Hungary and Sweden (38.5 hours).

The largest differences between men and women were recorded in Ireland (4 hours), the Netherlands (3.4 hours), and Greece (3 hours), while in Latvia and Bulgaria, the differences were minimal, under 0.5 hours per week.

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