How Many People Work Long Hours?

The 2006 Census counts the total New Zealand workforce as 1,985,778 workers. However, only 1,832,490 people provided information on working hours. (The remaining people had their hours coded as “Response unidentifiable” or “Not stated”.) Because this project relies on reports of working hours (rather than “full-time” or “part-time” categories), the analysis included in this paper has been confined to those for whom working hours data is available. As such, this paper is based on a total population of 1,832,490.

Of this population of 1,832,490, a total of 1,429,305 people worked full-time hours each week. Statistics New Zealand defines full-time work as 30 or more hours each week, and it is this figure that is used in this paper for calculations based on all full-time workers. A total of 415,641 [2] people reported working 50 or more hours each week, with this representing 22.68% of the workforce and 29.08% of full-time workers. Unless otherwise noted, all graphs in this paper are n=415,641 for those working long hours, and n=1,832,490 for the total workforce.

It is worth noting that standard full-time hours are often considered to be closer or equal to 40 hours each week. Defining full-time work as 30 or more hours per week increases the pool of “full-time workers” and thus has the consequence of reducing the proportions of full-time workers who work long hours. For example, 1,429,305 people reported working 30 or more hours each week, and 29.08% of these (n=415,641) worked long hours of 50 or more per week. However, the number of people working 40 or more hours each week was 1,194,732, so when those working 50 or more hours are considered as a proportion of this group, 34.79% worked long hours. As noted, nonetheless, the Statistics NZ definition of full-time work is used in the remainder of this paper.

35.98% of men working full-time worked 50 or more hours (n=308,079), while 18.77% of women working full-time worked long hours (n=107,562). Three-quarters (74.12%) of those working 50 or more hours are men, as are three-quarters (74.32%) of those working 60 or more hours a week. 16.32% of male full-time workers work 60 or more hours each week, as do 8.43% of female full-time workers.

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