Where to move to have the shortest work week

By Lauren Davidson 

If you work to live rather than the other way around, a jaunt across the Channel could be a wise career move. 

French people worked the fewest hours last year, with staffers in Paris clocking up 1,604 hours in 2015 followed by Lyonnaise employees with 1,631 hours, according to a survey by UBS.

Spread out across the entire year, that means Parisians worked an average of 30 hours and 50 minutes every week, slightly less than the 31 hours and 22 minutes worked in Lyon.

France is currently in the process of banning out-of-hours emailsby requiring companies to give staff a set of guidelines that include evening and weekend hours when they should not read or send work-related emails. 

A recent report from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that the majority of UK managers spend 29 extra days a year working on handheld devices outside of office hours, more thancancelling out their full holiday allotment for the year. 

Of the 71 cities included in the UBS survey – which measures the average annual working hours, including paid vacation and bank holidays, using a basket of 14 professions – European locations account for the top 18 cities that work the fewest hours each year. 

London ranks 17th, with its residents toiling away for 1,740 hours last year, or around 33 and a half hours per week. 

As the average city on the index has a working week of 36 hours and 23 minutes, London works 8pc less than the global norm, according to analysis by the business supplier marketplace Expert Market. 

Residents of New York, Beijing and Tokyo are more attached to their jobs, working for 35.5 hours, 37.7 hours and 39.5 hours respectively each week. 

But the busiest bees are in Hong Kong, where the work week stretches to just over 50 hours, meaning Hong Kongers are working for 38pc longer than the global average, 50pc more than Londoners and 62pc longer than Parisians. 

These findings come amid intensifying demand for fewer hours cooped up in the office and the adoption of more flexible working policies as developments in technology mean that many jobs can be done from almost anywhere in the world.

A recent study found that six out of 10 bosses believe that cutting employees' work days from eight to six hours could be beneficial for business.

However, choosing the best city for work-life balance depends whether you prefer to free up more time each week or have more holiday each year. 

While Parisians work the fewest hours each week, the Bahrain capital of Manama offers the most annual leave, giving its residents 34 days out of the office every year. 

Londoners are entitled to 25 days of paid holiday, two days more than the global average of 23 days, UBS found. 

Hard-working Hong Kongers take 17.2 days of paid leave a year, although workers on mainland China have it worse. Shanghai ranks lowest on the index with just seven days off each year, trailed by Bangkok with 9 days and Beijing with 10 days.

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