Americans are working less

[HemiEd]

I have my own theories on this, such as the stay at home working during covid and the stimulus money being the worst thing that has happened in a very long time.


Why Americans Are Working Less

Gallup finds that average hours worked have dropped progressively since 2019 when U.S. employees reported working an average of 44.1 hours. In 2024, they work 42.9 hours per week.

The decline in hours worked is more pronounced among younger (those younger than 35) than older workers (those aged 35 and older). Between 2019 and 2024, older employees have seen an average reduction of just under one hour per person per week, while younger employees have reduced their hours by nearly two hours.

Over a year, that’s the equivalent of older employees taking an extra week off of work and younger employees taking two weeks. These trends apply to full-time employees working at least 30 hours per week.

Possible Reasons for the Drop in Average Hours Worked per Week
Several new findings may explain this shift:

Overall employee wellbeing has been on the decline.
Employees now have less trust in institutions in general and feel more detached from their employers.
After a decade of steady improvement, employee engagement has reverted to its 2014 level.
Advances in technology may be making work more efficient. Gallup finds that nearly half (45%) of employees say AI has helped them improve their productivity. However, a workforce that is becoming more technically efficient and less engaged may lack the motivation needed for long-term growth.
Employees -- especially younger ones -- now place a higher priority on their overall wellbeing. In fact, work-life balance and better overall wellbeing now rank among the most important considerations when choosing a new job.
Additionally, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows declines in overall hours worked per person, particularly in industries that traditionally employ more young workers such as retail, leisure and hospitality.

The Connection Between Hours Worked and Employee Burnout
Burnout may be a major reason why employees are working fewer hours. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified “burnout” as a work-related syndrome resulting from chronic stress.

Previous Gallup research has found that an unmanageable workload is one of the contributing factors to burnout. This may help explain why employees report higher burnout (very often or always) as the number of hours they work rises above 45 hours per week.

more here

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/658...78644b3aaad4a0

[Third Eye]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

You are going to feel less connected to your job and company if you work remotely. It's just true. Some of my best memories are working with friends at a fortune 500 company right out of college. Great times and I worked hard for the company, as you should, because I agreed to the pay. Most employees prefer more pay in today's job hopping world than a defined benefit retirement/pension plan. This allows them to contribute to a 401k and that money is theirs. If a person saves appropriately, they would be able to purchase lifetime income at retirement that most likely would be similar to what a pension plan would be, but would have more flexibility to make those decisions. If pension plans were offered, the employer would have to pay less in salary, and this is not appealing to the current workforce. This isn't the big bad employer attacking workers. This is the employer's reaction to the current hiring marketplace.

As a former pension actuary, the move from pension to 401k was primarily driven by desire to de-risk on the employer side. Plain and simple. Yes, portability is an advantage for employees, but let's not get it confused. The current hiring marketplace is a symptom of the disincentivizing of staying long-term, not the other way around.

[Bl00dyBizkitz]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I think it's easy to get sucked in, even if you don't love your job or get large raises... if you take a lot of pride in your work, you may view it as a personal failure if you aren't able to complete all of your work (even if the workload is too much for one person)... or if people rely on you to get shit done so they can do their job, you don't want to let coworkers down or to be the bottleneck, which also points towards not wanting to be a target for layoffs and thinking working lots of hours means job security.

A lot of people work far out of scope of their normal responsibilities, too, especially if you've been promoted and people still ask you questions or have issues you can fix that were related to your previous position... so then if you'd a people pleaser, it never really crosses your mind to ignore those emails and requests, even if it makes you disgruntled.

Almost all of that comes down to open communication with leadership and a lot of people suck at that, too.

Lol I relate to this, too.

Probably the most fun I had at a job was fast food. I just happened to be working with other really cool people I could talk to and joke around with. We'd close and then hang out in the parking lot for 30 minutes just talking about random shit.

It was tough, stressful work and I knew the pay was bad, but I busted my ass for the other people around me because they did the same for me and I didn't want to let them down. I took pride in it and definitely went the extra mile despite how looked down upon the job is.

I dont hate work, but I probably have different goals and values in life compared to a lot of you guys, and those things just don't align with busting my ass for Corpo when I know for a fact they will stab in the back at a moments notice despite my best efforts.

[Nirvana58]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

You are going to feel less connected to your job and company if you work remotely. It's just true. Some of my best memories are working with friends at a fortune 500 company right out of college. Great times and I worked hard for the company, as you should, because I agreed to the pay. Most employees prefer more pay in today's job hopping world than a defined benefit retirement/pension plan. This allows them to contribute to a 401k and that money is theirs. If a person saves appropriately, they would be able to purchase lifetime income at retirement that most likely would be similar to what a pension plan would be, but would have more flexibility to make those decisions. If pension plans were offered, the employer would have to pay less in salary, and this is not appealing to the current workforce. This isn't the big bad employer attacking workers. This is the employer's reaction to the current hiring marketplace.

People job hop more and feel less connected to their jobs for many reasons.

1. As previous mentioned. Pay is stagnant if you don't move positions. Employers like to start people low and give them 3-5% raises every year. Which does not keep up with the market. So if you don't move positions every 2 years you are losing potential income.

2. Employer loyalty. Younger generation has learned that lay offs are always around the corner. It is all about the profit margin or stock price. You're employer will lay you off the minute it looks good for their bottom line. Why do you need to feel some sort of obligation or loyalty to your employer when they will show you none.

3. New age thinking. My dad will work until he dies. He will never have enough for retirement. This guy has put in 60-80 hours a week his entire life. Started working when he was 15. I don't want to live to work. The pay off just isn't there and they keep moving back the retirement age. Saying social security will collapse before I even get there.

My first thought when I saw this article is good. People really should only be putting in 40 hours a week. Work hard in life but damn our time here is short. You need to have a life outside of work and enjoy it.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Bl00dyBizkitz

Basically this.

The concept of loyalty to a single company for your entire career seems archaic and naive. I like being busy and working, but I'm VERY wary of why I'm doing it and who I'm doing it for.

Depends on the size of the company I think. I've been at the same company for 25 years but I've changed jobs 8 times, most of them moving up.

[ThyKingdomCome15]

I work 50 hours a week most generally

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Yeah, I was guilty of all that at a job site. Not because I wanted to stay employed but the way I'm wired when I was working. Tons of time would be devoted to fixing something because I could but my other duties for which I was hired still need to be done too,

I'll always struggle to stay within scope because I want to help and don't like pushing off work or ignoring people... yet as I'm sure you're well aware of in IT, those small requests are endless and even one "simple" thing can end up taking 5 times longer than expected.... and when you have 6 or 8 hours of meetings in a day, even 15 minutes is a good chunk of your free time.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Bl00dyBizkitz

when I know for a fact they will stab in the back at a moments notice despite my best efforts.

I think that's a two way street though.... yeah, they can fire you tomorrow or may not deliver on raises/promotions, but you can also quit today or maybe your productivity drops post-raise/promotion for whatever reason.

Hiring and training are expensive and I've been annoyed before when I spend significant time training up someone just for them to job hop in a year or two (especially if it takes 18 months to get up to speed).

Of course, the flip side is similar to how a new customer gets more benefits for signing up than existing customers get for sticking around.... if you don't treat your existing employees well, they have every incentive to job hop.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

You are going to feel less connected to your job and company if you work remotely. It's just true.

I don't know if I would make a definite statement on that as I think it comes down to company culture more than remote or on site. I feel more connected with my current role now, where I am remote 99.9% of the time than I did vs the last on site role I held.

The team I was on for the on site role was treated like a bastard stepchild so didn't really care beyond the check and free ticket perk.

In this role there's more integration among the teams, across the board and they fly me in once a year for a brief on site visit. The other 362 days I am half way across the country.

The job in between was fully remote and everyone kept to themselves. It was terrible and I was glad to leave.

[George Liquor]

Originally Posted by Mr_Tomahawk

The worst thing I ever did was load my work email onto my cell phone...

>select all
>delete

Problem solved

[George Liquor]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I don't know how married people with kids who work 50 hours a week have any me time at all. How do they have time for ANY hobby? It is mind boggling to me.

The amount of time I spend on my hobbies is astronomical. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

You find a way to make it work. For me, it's just less time for my degenerate behavior (poker and drinking)

[Rain Man]

I think the American system has historically rewarded hard work and hustle, and there's always been work to do. The European system has been in place for so long that there are fewer opportunities to hustle and be entrepreneurial. I wonder if perhaps that's a natural evolution of society when you no longer have expansion into the unsettled west or the wilds of Britain or wherever.

Of course, the key to the American system is being rewarded for more work. You clear land or you get a paper route or you drive Uber in the evenings or you write one more report to get a new client, and you're better off in the long run. I wonder if holding a job in a large corporation offers that opportunity. It probably does for some people and doesn't for others.

[htismaqe]

In my case, I had plenty of opportunity in this company. Being "corporate" has expanded my pay by 300% over the years. At the same time, I never had the uncertainty or instability that job hopping creates. I probably could have made even more money if I were more ambitious but I guess pursuit of wealth has never really driven me that much.

[ghak99]

A lot of retail now has strict policies to keep their employees below 40 hours. There's other company policies that limits many employees to under 32? hours. This limit is set based on state definitions of a full time employees.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by ghak99

A lot of retail now has strict policies to keep their employees below 40 hours. There's other company policies that limits many employees to under 32? hours. This limit is set based on state definitions of a full time employees.

Most states that I know of are either 28 hours or 32. It's so they don't have to pay full-time benefits, namely health insurance. Another side "benefit" of the ACA. People are working two or even three jobs and are still forced to buy expensive government insurance.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

You are going to feel less connected to your job and company if you work remotely. It's just true.

Probably depends on the company culture a bit. The job I had from 2021-2024 was fully remote (with occasional days in the office, but not much), and I felt very connected there. But we did a lot to foster that - multiple standup meetings a week, recurring 1:1s with team members to connect, a time every other week to collaborate and brainstorm on big-picture challenges. I'm still close friends with a few from my team.

And then we got a new Chief Product Officer who laid off my entire team despite our former CEO calling us one of the most impactful teams in the organization. So again, it's a little tough to feel motivated to work hard when a random shift in executive leadership can result in you getting booted out of nowhere.