How many working hours in a year?

It’s advantageous to know how many working hours in a year. Equipped with this knowledge, you can clarify how much you’re actually making per hour if you tend to work several hours, as well as how well you’re doing with the whole “work-life balance” thing.

Below we share why it can be beneficial to calculate the actual number of hours you work annually, so you can decide for yourself if it’s something that could prove helpful for you.

Benefits of knowing your annual working hours

It’s beneficial to know how many working hours in a given year, as well as the number of those hours you actually work, for several reasons.

Calculate your hourly salary

For salaried employees, if you are consistently working more than 40 hours per week, you might want to break your salary down to get clear on how much you’re making per hour.

Calculate your annual income

For hourly employees, if you know how many hours you work annually, you can determine your annual salary. Having your annual salary available makes it simpler for you to plan and budget.

If you tend to work a lot of overtime each week, you might want to look back over the past year to get an idea of how many overtime hours you worked each week and use that number in the current year’s estimate.

Examine your work-life balance

When you work too many hours, it can impact your overall health and well-being, which leads to lower productivity. As such, it’s vital for employees to take time off and step away from work to regenerate and decompress. When you calculate the number of hours you work in a year, you can better examine your work-life balance habits. You can then determine if you need to take more time away from work or reduce your hours in general.

Plan for activities outside of work

Knowing the number of hours you work annually allows you to determine how much time you’ll have outside of work. That way, you can plan activities like exercise, hobbies, personal development, volunteering, friend time, and family time.

Calculating the number of working hours in a year

Here are the steps to calculate your average working hours per year:

Step 1: Determine your weekly hours

First, determine the number of working hours per week that you work. It could be easier to consider how many hours you work daily if you tend to work more on some days than others. If your hours vary by day, total all the hours you work from day to day.

For example, if you tend to work the standard 8 hours per day, then you work an average of 40 hours per week. If you work 8 hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and 6 hours on Wednesday and Friday, your total average hours per week are 36.

Step 2: Multiply by 52 weeks

Next, take your average working hours per week and multiply it by 52, which equates to the total number of weeks in a year. The results are the total hours worked during the year if you didn’t take any time away for holidays, vacation, or sick leave.

Step 3: Total your PTO (Paid Time Off) and paid holiday hours

Depending on your organization’s policy, all your time off for vacation and sick time might fall under PTO (Paid Time Off). This is an increasingly popular option for businesses to employ.

Some companies still separate sick time and vacation time.

Regardless of your company’s policy, you have two options to project your time off. If you typically take all your time off provided each year, use that number. Or, you can choose to estimate the amount of vacation and sick leave you’ll take in a given year and use that number.

If you are granted your time off in hours, then your calculation is straightforward. If you receive your time off as days, then take the number of days you plan to take off and multiply it by the number of hours you work in a day.

For paid holidays, take the number of holidays you get off per year and multiply it by the number of hours you work in a day.

Calculation: [(PTO Days + Paid Holidays) X # of Hours Per Day] = Total Time Off Hours

Step 4: Subtract your total time off from your annual hours

Take the total you received in Step 2 and subtract the total you added up in Step 4. You now have the average number of hours you work each year.

Calculation: (# of Hours Per Week X 52) – [(PTO Days + Paid Holidays) X # of Hours Per Day] = Total Annual Hours

Hourly pay calculation for salaried employees

Exempt salaried employees generally get paid the same amount regardless of how many hours they work. If you’re a salaried employee who regularly works more than 40 hours a week, you might want to determine how much you truly get paid per hour to decide if the job is worth it.

To calculate your hourly pay, divide your annual salary by 52 (52 weeks), and then divide the result by the number of hours you work on average each week. If you get an annual bonus each year, you can add that to your annual base salary to get your total annual salary.

Calculation: (Annual Base Salary + Annual Bonus) / 52 weeks / Average Hours Worked Each Week = Hourly Rate

Total working hours per year

Often, organizations use 2080 working hours in a year when doing salary calculations. When working full-time at a standard 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, you get 40 hours per week. Multiply 40 hours by 52 weeks in a year, and you come up with 2080 working hours.

Calculation: 40 Hours Per Week X 52 = 2080 Hours

It’s rare to have exactly 2080 working hours in a year, given year-to-year fluctuation in the number of working days. Based on the fluctuations in working days and weeks, the number can change, give or take a few days.

Use the above calculations and insights to guide you in determining your average working hours per year. Being equipped with the appreciation of how many working hours you have each year helps to ensure you’re being paid fairly, you have plenty of time to plan for fun activities and connections outside of work, and you can better create balance within and outside the workplace, as needed.