Portugal ranks as the fourth country in the European Union with the longest working weeks, according to new data from Eurostat. In 2024, 9.2% of workers aged 20 to 64 put in 49 hours or more each week, compared to an EU average of 6.6%.
While the share of overworked employees across Europe has been slowly declining – from 9.8% in 2014 to 8.4% in 2019 – Portugal remains one of the nations where long hours are most common.
Greece tops the list with 12.4%, followed by Cyprus and France. On the other end, Bulgaria has the lowest rate at just 0.4%, followed by Latvia (1.0%) and Lithuania (1.4%).
Self-employed workers are far more likely to work long weeks: 27.5% of the self-employed worked 49 hours or more, compared with 3.4% of employees.
Among professions, the longest hours were found in agriculture, forestry, and fishing (26.2%), as well as among managers (21.1%).
