Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 29 
Figure 7: Psychosocial risk factors – Differences between skill groups (Skill discretion) 
 
For ‘Decision authority’ and ‘Skill discretion’, the authors found a stable situation since 1995, even a 
small rise of skill discretion for manual workers after 2010. Regarding ‘Psychological demands’ and ‘Job 
strain’, the major increase for all groups took place between 1995 and 2005. This growth decelerated 
after 2005, this observation is also valid for other working conditions, like work intensity.  
 
3.1.1 Working time in hours and at atypical times  
Too many hours of working time and/or working hours at atypical or unsocial times can put the 
mental and the physical health of humans at risk. It is also regarded as a major contributing factor 
to work accidents, due to fatigue or exhaustion.16  
The main indicator to describe working time is the number of the weekly average working hours of 
full-time employees. However, regarding its impact on health and safety , other aspects of working 
time are of the same relevance: 
• How long is the average working day? 
• At which times and days is this work done (typical, atypical times)? 
• How often do long working hours take place? 
• Is the work split between two jobs? 
• How flexible are start and end? 
• How intense is the work during this time (breaks, deadlines)?  
• Which groups of workers have standard working times and which do not (e.g. depending on the 
sector or the type of contract, e.g. sub-contracted workers or self-employed)? 
There is a slight trend towards fewer working hours for full-time employees (not ‘Employed persons’) 
in the EU27; between 2006 and 2019 the average weekly working time dropped from 40.2 to 39.9 hours, 
a decrease of approximately 15 minutes.17 
Regarding the weekly hours, there are no striking differences  between the EU27 Member States. In 
2019, Cyprus, Austria and Malta with a high share of workers in the sector of tourism (accommodation) 
had the highest number of working hours per week (above 41 hours), and Denmark, the Netherlands 
and Italy the lowest number (39 or fewer) (full-time, employees, 15-64 years, all NACE codes).18