x
Breaking News
More () »

These are the 10 hardest-working cities in the U.S.

Some parts of the country might be a little more hard-working than others.
Top view shot of woman sitting at table with laptop and coffee writing on notebook. Female making to do list on diary.

Does it seem like you are working longer hours and constantly at work’s beck and call?

In a typical week, Americans work an average of 44.5 hours, according to a 2017 Gallup poll that is conducted annually. That is up from 42.8 hours in 2012.

But some parts of the country just might be a little more hard-working than others.

A new study by personal finance website WalletHub compared the 116 largest cities to determine the hardest-working cities in the U.S.

The report analyzed nine different factors including average workweek hours, employment rate, share of workers leaving vacation time unused and share of workers with multiple jobs.

Here are the top 10 hardest-working cities in America, according to Wallethub:

1. San Francisco

2. Fremont, Calif.

3. Jersey City

4. Washington, D.C.

5. New York

6. Oakland

7. Boston

8. Aurora, Colo.

9. Newark

10. Chicago

See the entire list of how the 116 largest cities rank: 2018’s hardest-working cities in America. The study only looked at the city proper and not the surrounding metro area.

Americans clock more hours per worker than most of the other industrialized countries including Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To find out why that is, Wallethub asked several labor experts.

"Workers in the U.S. work more hours because unions here, which have become smaller and weaker have been unable to negotiate either a shorter work week, or higher real wages for 30 years," said Mike Olszanski, outreach coordinator in the Department of Labor Studies at Indiana School of Social Work. "Since wages are flat, the only way to earn more is to work more."

Ali R. Bustamante, an economic policy fellow in the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans, told Wallethub: "Americans typically work more hours that workers in Europe, because American employment regulations promote greater working hours."

Before You Leave, Check This Out