U.S. Average Weekly Hours, Production and Nonsupervisory Workers

## What this measures

The average weekly hours paid to the roughly four in five private-sector workers who are not managers or supervisors.

## Why it matters

It is the long-run record of the American workweek, going back to 1964, and the series to set against any claim that the workweek is about to shrink.

## How to read it

It averaged 38.5 hours in 1964 and 33.7 in 2025, and was 33.8 in September 2026. Most of the decline happened before 1990, as part-time work and service jobs grew; since 1990 it has moved within about an hour of 34.

## What it does not say

It is hours paid per job in a pay period, not hours per person: someone with two jobs counts twice, and paid leave counts as hours. Changes in who is employed move it too; when low-hour workers lose their jobs, the average rises, as it did in 2020.

## Source

Bureau of Labor Statistics, series AWHNONAG ("Average Weekly Hours of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private"). Palanor pulls it from the FRED API (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) nightly. Bureau of Labor Statistics data are in the public domain.