American Time Use Survey: Charts by Topic: Work and employment

Charts by Topic: Work and employment

Findings from the 2011 survey:

Employed persons worked an average of 7.6 hours on the days they worked. More hours were worked, on average, on weekdays than on weekend days—8.0 hours compared with 5.7 hours.
On the days that they worked, employed men worked 47 minutes 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 longer than women—8.3 hours compared with 7.8 hours.
Many more people worked on weekdays than on weekend days: 82 percent of employed persons worked on an average weekday, compared with 35 percent on an average weekend day. These estimates include individuals who worked on the day, regardless of whether they usually work on those days. For example, the 35 percent of workers who worked on a weekend day includes those whose jobs are typically performed on weekends, as well as those who usually work on weekdays but spent time working on the weekend.
On the days that they worked, 21 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home, and 85 percent did some or all of their work at their workplace. Men and women were about equally likely to do some or all of their work at home.

Multiple jobholders were more likely to work on a weekend day or holiday than single jobholders. (Data are from the 2011 survey).

Self-employed workers were three times more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home on days they worked; multiple jobholders were also more likely to work at home as single jobholders. Working at home includes any time persons did work at home and is not restricted to persons whose usual workplace is their home. (Data are from the 2011 survey).

Among educational groups, those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were most likely to work at home. On the days they worked, 36 percent of individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher worked from home compared to 21 percent of those with some college and 13 percent of those with a high school diploma. (These data are averages for 2007 to 2011).

On days that they worked, more than three-quarters of employed individuals age 15 and over worked between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Less than 8.5 percent of employed individuals worked between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. (These data are averages for 2007 to 2011).

Last Modified Date: November 16, 2012