‘Americans just work harder,' Norway’s trillion-dollar man claims. But does working longer hours make Americans more productive?

Work hours versus worker productivity

On average, Europeans only work slightly less than Americans per week. The average employee in the European Union works 37.5 hours per week, while the average American works 38 hours per week, based on analysis from Eurostat.

The real difference in working days between Europe and the U.S. comes down to vacation days. European countries offer between 26 and 38 days off work, including minimum paid leave and public holidays, Euronews analysis shows.

Meanwhile, the average American takes 7.6 days of vacation per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on top of the 11 federally recognized holidays.

With all those extra days on the job, Americans were significantly more productive than Europeans in 2024, data from the European Central Bank shows.

Interestingly, while European productivity has traditionally lagged behind that of the U.S., that gap did narrow from 2020 to 2022, the researchers note. They point to the efforts of European countries to implement job retention schemes while unemployment was surging in the U.S. But by mid-2022, the gap started widening again in the wake of a large energy price shock.

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Big tech behind productivity difference

So why are Americans more productive than their European counterparts?

The European Central Bank suggested that employees changing roles more quickly in the U.S. and a more tech-based economy was behind the differences in productivity, not hours worked.

“Productivity growth in the United States since the pandemic is associated with labor market churn and higher investment in digitalisation,” the European Central Bank said.

American tech investment dwarfs European spending on the sector, with investors putting $1.36 trillion more into U.S. information and communication technology firms than European ones.

And those advancements make those American companies even more attractive for investors. Even Norges Bank Investment Management’s investments in the U.S. now represent close to half of its portfolio — up from less than a third 10 years ago. In the same time period, its European investments have declined.

As for Tangen, he points to the pro-business mindset of the U.S., which stands in stark contrast with his home continent, and creates a more investment-friendly atmosphere for founders. He adds some American chief executives recently told him they find it difficult to do business in Europe due to the increased red tape around technology — artificial intelligence (AI) in particular.

“I’m not saying it’s good, but in America you have a lot of AI and no regulation; in Europe you have no AI and a lot of regulation. It’s interesting,” Tangen said.

Work-life balance

Even if Tangen didn't want to get too much into discussions about work/life balance, that is something Europe does have up on the States.

Europeans tend to have a better work-life balance due to more vacation time and parental leave, a study from Virginia Tech comparing the work cultures of academics found.

“European culture in general and higher education appear to be more effective at establishing better work-life balance than in the United States,” the study found.

Researchers noticed Europeans enjoyed longer lunch breaks that were often communal at universities in Europe when compared with the U.S.

European academics highly valued those breaks as opportunities to interact with their colleagues, while American counterparts, who tended to “value efficiency at meals” might miss out on that social element by working through lunch.

One of the best ways to improve work/life balance is to disconnect and take time off. Europeans value this vacation time, while many Americans fail to take even the days allotted to them.

That is, if they have vacation time in the first place. A staggering 28 million employees have no time off in the U.S., and there is no federal law mandating vacation time.