Quality of employment General information

Working hours and work-life balance

A large part of the population spends its time working. On the one hand peo­ple work to earn money. In this respect, the salary can only be judged in relation to the time in­volved in work. That is why the working hours are an­other dimension of the “quality of employment“.

The amount of working hours plays an important role: “too much“ is as of­ten per­ceived as negative as “too little“. However, in addition to the num­ber of working hours, the as­pect of the flexibility of working time has to be con­sid­ered. Is it pos­sible to freely choose the working times or do the working hours take place at un­usual time of day (possibly at night)?

Because of the very large portion the working hours take, the importance of a ba­lance between work and non-working life is often pointed out. The right balance is not only essential for satisfaction and performance of the em­ployed person, but also for the reconciliation of work and family life.