GENEVA (ILO News) – Are people working more or less hours, and where? What is the status of the 40-hour week? In what jobs, and where, do people work longer or shorter hours? Who works longer hours, women or men, and why?
These and a host of other issues are the subject of a new report to be launched here on 7 June by the International Labour Office (ILO). The new study, the most comprehensive of its kind ever published, examines working time in over 50 countries around the world, and explores the implications for working time policies in developing and transition countries for the first time.
Working Time Around the World: Trends in working hours, laws, and policies in a global comparative perspective (Note 1) by Sangheon Lee, Deirdre McCann and Jon C. Messenger, will be formally launched at the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva by Jon C. Messenger, co-author of the study, and Thierry Guillermet, Maître de réadaptation au Centre d’intégration professionnel and Antoine Pradas, Coordinateur Horlogerie au Centre d’intégration professionnel.
For the last five decades, there has been a global shift towards a 40-hour weekly legal limit on working time, although substantial regional differences and uneven progress in reducing hours are apparent. The study examines what influence legal standards may have on actual working hours in a number of countries. It also examines working hours in the service sector and its subsectors, such as wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants and transport, storage and communications, as well as in the growing informal economy. The book also considers how gender and age may help determine working time.
The authors also provide a set of policy suggestions that preserve health and safety, are family friendly, promote gender equality, enhance productivity and facilitate workers choice and influence over their working hours.
Launch details
The study will be available to the media in hard copy at the Patek Philippe Museum, 7 rue des Vieux-Grenadiers, 1205 Geneva on Thursday, 7 June at 10:00 a.m., and thereafter at the ILO Department of Communication desk during the International Labour Conference at the Palais des Nations. A free shuttle bus will take interested media to the Museum at 9:30 a.m. from door 15 of the Palais des Nations. There will also be the possibility to tour the Museum collections following the press conference. Interviews can be scheduled via the ILO Department of Communication with working time experts. For more information please contact +4122/799-7912.
Note 1 - Working Time Around the World: Trends in working hours, laws, and policies in a global comparative perspective by Sangheon Lee, Deirdre McCann and Jon C. Messenger, 240 pp., ISBN 978-92-2-119311-1, ILO, Geneva.