Americans count their lunch breaks as hours worked. The typical “office worker” schedule is 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday with a one hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00. This is 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week, but if you are not counting lunch breaks then it is 35 hours a week of actual “work”.
Or this comment is made by a European who wants to just diss Americans without realising this situation is largely the same in both places… 😇
Edit: Since there appears to be some confusion here, if a worker had a working schedule of 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday with a one hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00, and you asked a European and an American how many hours a week this person works, the American would say 40 but the European would say 35.
Every salary job I’ve worked is 8 hours a day of work with a 1 hour unpaid lunch. So it’s something like 08:00-17:00 or 09:00-18:00 as your work hours. That’s what is called 40 hours a week around here. You could consider that 45 hours a week. As lunch is unpaid that’s considered your time to do whatever you want including leaving the job site for that hour.
Some shift-work places will do something like 09:00 to 17:00 with a paid 30 minute lunch. Since lunch is paid time, they can require you stay on the job site. This is isn’t as common now as it used to be, but some places like factories that run a 24 hours a day schedule still do things like that.
Americans count their lunch breaks as hours worked. The typical “office worker” schedule is 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday with a one hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00. This is 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week, but if you are not counting lunch breaks then it is 35 hours a week of actual “work”.
I am an American. When someone works the schedule indicated, I and my fellow countrymen would call it 40 hours a week, but a European would count it as 35 hours a week.
Americans count their lunch breaks as hours worked. The typical “office worker” schedule is 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday with a one hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00. This is 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week, but if you are not counting lunch breaks then it is 35 hours a week of actual “work”.
Or this comment is made by a European who wants to just diss Americans without realising this situation is largely the same in both places… 😇
Edit: Since there appears to be some confusion here, if a worker had a working schedule of 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday with a one hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00, and you asked a European and an American how many hours a week this person works, the American would say 40 but the European would say 35.
Every salary job I’ve worked is 8 hours a day of work with a 1 hour unpaid lunch. So it’s something like 08:00-17:00 or 09:00-18:00 as your work hours. That’s what is called 40 hours a week around here. You could consider that 45 hours a week. As lunch is unpaid that’s considered your time to do whatever you want including leaving the job site for that hour.
Some shift-work places will do something like 09:00 to 17:00 with a paid 30 minute lunch. Since lunch is paid time, they can require you stay on the job site. This is isn’t as common now as it used to be, but some places like factories that run a 24 hours a day schedule still do things like that.
I think this would be news to most Americans.
I am an American. When someone works the schedule indicated, I and my fellow countrymen would call it 40 hours a week, but a European would count it as 35 hours a week.
What field do you work in? If you’re salary, all bets are off. If you work for a factory, you’ll work 8-5 with an unpaid lunch.
Then I never talked irl to a typical American with typical working hours. Next time I talk to them I tell them they are doing it wrong…