Spaniards work half an hour more per week than the European average, and four more than the Dutch
The average weekly working time in Spain is 36.3 hours, compared with Germany’s 33.9. Differences between countries are explained by the weight of part‑time employment and by shorter full‑time weeks
Employees in Spain worked an average of 36.3 hours a week in 2025, according to the latest figures released by Eurostat. That figure keeps Spain above the European average of 35.9 hours and far from the countries where the average working week is shortest. The latter include some of the continent’s most economically advanced states, the opposite of those with the longest hours and with less-developed productive sectors.
The shortest workweeks are in Belgium (34.3 hours), Austria (34), Denmark (33.9), Germany (33.9) and the Netherlands (31.9), while the longest are in Slovenia (38.3), Lithuania (38.4), Bulgaria (38.7), Poland (38.7) and Greece (39.6).
This variable is inseparable from another labor statistic: the share of employees working part time. Countries with shorter hours are precisely those where a larger share of the labor market works part time. That ranking is led by the Netherlands, with 38.6% of its employees, followed by Austria (30.2%) and Germany (29.2%), while at the other end are Bulgaria (1.7%), Romania (2.3%) and Croatia (2.9%). Again, the more developed economies are on one side and the less advanced on the other.
This dynamic reflects the two faces of part-time work: it can be positive if it is voluntary — a sign of efforts to find a work-life balance, or the fact that a part‑time wage can be enough to live on — or negative if it is involuntary and a feature of underemployment, meaning workers who put in fewer hours than they would like. Eurostat also measures this phenomenon and Spain does not fare well: 45.7% of part-time workers in Spain would like to work more hours, the third‑worst rate in the EU, surpassed only by Romania at 62.3% and Italy at 51%. Far lower are the Netherlands at 2.2% and Germany at 5.3%.
In the average weekly hours worked by part‑time employees, Spain falls below the European mean. Workers in that situation are employed for 20.2 hours, compared with the EU average of 21.8 hours. Part‑time weeks in Portugal last 18.3 hours, while in Romania they extend to 25.3 hours.
Among full‑time employees, Spain matches the European average, at 38.7 hours. This measure reflects countries where trade unions have achieved larger reductions in the agreed working week, which also tend to be economies with a higher relative weight of higher value‑added sectors. Full‑time employees with the fewest hours are in Belgium (37.9), Denmark (37.8), Sweden (37.8), the Netherlands (37.4) and Finland (37.1). The longest full‑time weeks are in Greece (40.6), Poland (39.9), Slovenia (39.8), Lithuania (39.4) and Cyprus (39.1).
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