Azlan Othman

According to data compiled by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the average person in Brunei Darussalam clocks in 47 hours in an average working week – the same as in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Brunei is among the countries where people work the most hours in a week.

In the Netherlands, the average person works 32 hours a week.

Australia, New Zealand and Rwanda have average working weeks of 33 hours; the people in Denmark and Norway work an average of 34 hours; and Belarus, Georgia and Germany have average working weeks of 35 hours.

The average working week in the United Kingdom (UK) is 36 hours – the same as in Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Israel, Sweden and Switzerland.

Of the 10 countries where people work the most hours per week, nine are in Asia. Qatar has the longest average working week of all (49 hours), followed by Myanmar (48), Mongolia (48), Bangladesh (47), Brunei (47) and Pakistan (47).

In both Ireland and the United States, people work an average of 37 hours every week – an hour more than in the UK. Europe’s longest working week can be found in Montenegro, where people work an average of 43 hours.

On average, Bruneians are at work seven to eight hours a day, for five days a week.

According to the Labour Force Survey 2017 conducted by the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE), there are more than 180,000 workers in this country with more than 90 per cent categorised as employees, with around 75,000 (40 per cent of 180,000) being employed in the public service sector.