Adequate working time is a crucial part of decent work. It represents a key element of working conditions and has a great impact on workers’ income, well-being, and living conditions.
Some of the major challenges regarding working time have persisted since the dawn of the industrial age: excessive hours of work and the need to protect workers’ health and safety by limiting working hours and providing adequate periods of rest and recuperation, including weekly rest and paid annual leave – which are enshrined in international labour standards.
On the other hand, in order to reach an adequate level of monthly remuneration, workers should have access to a minimum desirable number of hours of work, avoiding involuntary part-time employment and time-related underemployment.
Table of contents
Methods

Indicator description: Hours of work
Indicator descriptions provide a concise overview of concepts and definitions, uses, sources and limitations.

Decent Work Indicators - Guidelines for producers and users of statistical and legal framework indicators
Decent work is central to sustainable poverty reduction and is a means for achieving equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. The ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization recommends the establishment of appropriate indicators to monitor the progress made in the implementation of the ILO Decent Work Agenda. The ILO is supporting member States through technical assistance and capacity building at national, sub-regional and regional levels in this regard.

Sources and Methods Volume 2: Establishment surveys (2012) - Employment, wages, hours of work and labour cost
This volume presents national methodological descriptions of establishment surveys from which statistics of employment, wages, hours of work and labour cost are obtained. It is a revised, enlarged and updated version of the second edition issued in 1995 and contains descriptions for 172 surveys in respect of 84 countries, areas and territories.

Resolution concerning the measurement of working time
Adopted by the 18th ICLS (2008), this resolution revises the existing standards on statistics of hours of work in order to reflect the working time of persons in all sectors of the economy and in all forms of productive activity towards the achievement of decent work for all, and to provide measurement methodologies and guidelines on a larger number of measures than previously defined internationally, thereby enhancing the standards’ usefulness as technical guidelines to States and hence the consistency and international comparability of the statistics.

Sources and Methods Volume 3A: Household surveys (2004) – Economically active population, employment, unemployment and hours of work
This volume presents national methodological descriptions of statistics of employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work and other indicators derived from labour force and household surveys, disseminated on ILOSTAT. It is a revised and updated version of the second edition issued in 1990. This third edition contains descriptions for 83 countries.

Sources and Methods Volume 4: Administrative records and related sources (2004) – Employment, unemployment, wages and hours of work
This volume presents national methodological descriptions of statistics of employment, unemployment, wages and hours of work, derived from administrative records and related sources. It is a revised and updated version of the first edition issued in 1989, and contains 124 descriptions in respect of 102 countries, areas and territories.