These are the countries with the best work-life balance

All eyes are on the world’s best soccer teams right now, but what about which countries have the best work-life balance for their employees? OK, so it isn’t quite as exciting but if you have no work life balance then you have no time to watch soccer so there you go.

Reportlinker collected several country data to highlight the different working patterns around the world and found that our friends in Germany are feeling the most balanced with the average employee working 26 hours per week. France isn’t far behind with 35 to 39 per week.

This is not surprising considering that in France employers have not been permitted to force employees (via threats of being fired) to put in more than 35 hours of work time per week since 2002. They are working way fewer hours than their colleagues in North America, Eastern Europe and Asia due to these laws. The U.S. falls right in the middle with 34 hours per week.

As for other countries with good work-life balance, Scandinavian countries rank quite high as well

• 46.5% of workers putting in 35 to 39 hours per week in Finland
• 26% work 40 to 44 hours (through 2016)
• Almost 63% of employees in Norway work 35 to 39 hours per week, with just 6% working 40 to 44 hours.
• Through 2016 8% of employees in Norway work only 10 to 19 hours per week!
•  In Denmark(through 2016), 58% of employees worked 35 to 39 hours per week, with only 6% working 40 to 44 hours

Countries where they are putting in way more than 9 to 5

• In 2016, 56.7% of Turkey’s employees worked 40- 49 hours per week. Another 15% worked 50-59 hours
• In Romania, about 95% of employees work 40-49 hours per week

But the country with the most hours worked per week is?

• In Mexico, the average is approximately 43 hours worked per week
• United States employees fall right in the middle of the global rankings (about 34 hours worked per week), while Germans work the least (about 26 hours).