Hours worked is the total number of hours actually worked per year divided by the average number of people in employment per year.

Actual hours worked include regular work hours of full-time, part-time and part-year workers, paid and unpaid overtime, hours worked in additional jobs. Hours excluded include time not worked because of public holidays, annual paid leave, own illness, injury and temporary disability, maternity leave, parental leave, schooling or training, slack work for technical or economic reasons, strike or labour dispute, bad weather, compensation leave and other reasons. The data cover employees and self-employed workers.

The data are intended for comparisons of trends over time; they are unsuitable for comparisons of the level of average annual hours of work for a given year, because of differences in sources and methods of calculation.

This indicator is measured in hours per worker per year.