“Time flies whether you’re having fun or not. It’s best to have fun!” —Avis Ward
The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their Work and Employment Findings from a 2006 survey. The results, stated below, may or may not surprise you.
- Employed persons worked 7.6 hours on average on the days that they worked. They worked longer on weekdays than on weekend days—8.0 versus 5.4 hours.
- Many more people worked on weekdays than on weekend days: 84 percent of employed persons worked on an average weekday compared with 35 percent on an average weekend day.
- On the days they worked, employed men worked about an hour more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women’s greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked somewhat longer than women—8.4 versus 7.7 hours.
- On the days they worked, 21 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home and 86 percent did some or all of their work at their workplace. Hours worked at home averaged 2.6 hours per day while hours worked at a workplace averaged 7.9 hours per day. Men and women were equally likely to do some of all of their work at home.
- Employed women, ages 25 to 54, who lived with a child under age 6 spent about an hour less per day on average working than employed women living in households without children. On the other hand, employed men living with a child under age 6 worked about the same amount of time as those living in households without children.
- Self-employed workers were more likely to work on an average weekend day (49 percent) than were wage and salary workers (39 percent). Self-employed workers were also more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home-56 versus 17 percent.
Why did I share the findings of last year’s Work and Employment survey from the BLS by the U.S. Department of Labor? Do I think you needed it to convince you of the amount of time you spend working? Most certainly not! Since we spend a magnanimous amount of quality time during our day working, I have a question for each of us, ‘Are we having fun yet?’
