Infosys supremo Narayana Murthy has repeatedly stirred the debate of output versus humanity by insisting on working 70 hours a week. The logic behind this is Narayan Murthy’s desire to take the country forward. But the rules of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Psychology which govern human ability dictate that a man cannot produce better output by working 70 hours every week. On digging deeper into the facts, we find that there is no country in the world where 70 hours or more work is done in a week legally.
Only North Korea has been accused of making people work for 105 hours a week. Keep in mind that North Korea is a country run by a dictator, people held captive for political or brutal crimes are made to do hard labor in the labor camps there. However, the North Korean government has always denied these allegations. North Korea follows the conventions of the ILO i.e. International Organization. According to this, work should not be done anywhere in the world for more than six days a week and eight hours every day i.e. 48 hours a week.
Even in North Korea, the maximum working hours per week are legally fixed at 48 hours. But from time to time there are reports that in the companies there, employees are made to work more hours than this in the name of overtime. To explain this, it is said that employees work extra time to earn extra income.
There is a law of 53 hours work a week in UAE
This is a painful picture of UAE i.e. United Arab Emirates, whose city Dubai is famous all over the world as the center of luxury. Yes, there is a law there to work strictly for 52.6 hours a week. Gambia is at second place in this ranking, where there is a law to work 50.8 hours a week. At third place is Bhutan at 50.7 hours and at fourth place is Lesotho at 49.8 hours. After this comes countries like Congo and Qatar. India is at number seven in this list. There is a provision to work six days a week and a total of 47.7 hours.
How many hours do people work in developed countries?
None of the countries that work the most hours a week are developed countries. Therefore, let’s take a look at the weekly labor hours of developed countries. In the world’s most developed country, the United States, people work only 36.4 hours a week. That is, exactly half of the time of Narayanmurthy’s appeal is given as workforce. However, industry wise and city wise it is also higher in some places. There the maximum time spent in mining is 45.5 hours. In Germany the rule is to work 34.3 hours a week. In the United Kingdom it is 35.9 hours and in the European Union countries it is 36 hours per week.
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