Which country has the shortest working hours?

1. Yemen — 22.95 hours a week

2. Netherlands — 26.57 hours

3. Norway — 26.58 hours

4. Syria — 27.90 hours

5. Vanuatu — 28.31 hours

6. Denmark — 28.91 hours

7. Finland — 29.10 hours

8. Austria — 29.15 hours

9. Sweden — 29.20 hours

10. Rwanda — 29.30 hours

A closer look at Yemen

Workers in Yemen average just 22.95 hours a week — roughly half the workweek logged in Bhutan, the country with the world’s longest average hours, according to the Clockify report. The breakdown by gender shows men in Yemen working 23.45 hours a week on average, compared with 14.85 hours for women, per the same ILO figures cited by Clockify.

Unlike several other countries near the bottom of the rankings, where short hours reflect strong labour protections and high productivity, Yemen’s low average is widely tied to the country’s prolonged conflict and economic instability, which has disrupted formal employment.

By contrast, the No. 2 and No. 3 countries on the list — the Netherlands and Norway — are held up in the Clockify report as examples of shorter hours driven by widespread part-time work and strong labour-market conditions rather than economic distress.

Canada, US

Canada does not appear in the global bottom 10. A full-time employee here worked 38.8 hours a week on average in 2025, while part-time workers averaged 18.6 hours, according to Statistics Canada figures cited in the Clockify report. That marks a decline of 2.7 hours a week from 1980 levels.

Isidora Mirosavljevic, an employee experience specialist at CAKE.com, linked the decline to a cultural shift in workplace attitudes. “In the 1980s, employees used to work at least 40 hours per week and often had overtime work,” Mirosavljevic said, according to Clockify. “But, nowadays, people are more aware of mental health and we’re trying to prevent workplace burnout.”