We track US employment trends in our monthly Bespoke Consumer Pulse survey along with dozens of other interesting consumer and personal finance topics. Each month since 2014, we’ve asked our 1,500 survey participants (with balanced demographics according to the US census) whether they’re employed or not along with how many hours they typically work each week.

When it comes to the average hourly work week, we get the results below when we break down our survey response data by age. The two age bands of employed workers that work the least are the youngest (18 to 24) and oldest (75 or older). Those aged 45 to 54 work the most each week at 38.5 hours, while the 35 to 44 group works the second most at 37.6 hours.

Of course, the youngest workers and oldest workers could be working part-time, which would bring down the average work week for these two age bands. We get some interesting results when we look at average weekly hours for full-time employees only. As shown below, the oldest full-time employees average by far the most weekly hours at 43.0, while the three age bands between ages 45 and 74 all average right around 41 hours. The youngest full-time workers average the fewest weekly hours of any age band at 37.7.

Why would 75+ year-olds be working the longest hours of any age cohort when they’re supposed to be enjoying retirement? Is it work satisfaction? Work ethic? Economic reasons? This may be something we attempt to find out in future surveys!

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