As the economy gradually recovers, Americans are spending more time at work. They’re also spending a couple more minutes sleeping and a couple less doing housework. They’re even cutting back a bit on watching TV.



The Labor Department on Friday released the American Time Use Survey, an annual snapshot of how Americans spend their days. Based on an annual survey of about 12,500 people, the report provides data on everything from how much time Americans spend in church to how many people work weekends.

In recent years, the big story has been the effects of the 2007-2009 recession. During the downturn, Americans spent much less time at work and more time asleep and watching television. As the economy has recovered, those trends have reversed, but only part way.

People with jobs worked about 7.99 hours per day last year, compared to 7.82 hours in 2010. Americans still spent a lot of time watching TV at 2.75 hours a day, down a bit from 2.82 hours in the depths of the recession in 2009. But by far, we spend more time sleeping than any other single activity — 8.71 hours per day, the highest level in data going back to 2003.