Many Americans take pride in their drive and long work hours, but some cities work harder than others. A new study by WalletHub showed which cities are the hardest working, and several are here in North Texas.
According to WalletHub, the average U.S. worker puts in 1,791 hours per year, which is 184 hours more than the average in Japan, 294 more than the U.K. and 442 more than Germany. After the COVID-19 pandemic offered more opportunities to work from home, many have made the switch, which can end up extending work hours even further.
Irving was ranked the highest among the Texas cities, coming in at third on the list. The city was just behind San Francisco, California and Anchorage, Alaska. But Irving isn’t the only hard-working city in North Texas. Dallas came in ninth, and Plano was just behind in 12th.
Some U.S. cities represent the strong work ethic that helped to build the world’s biggest economy better than others, and there are cities that were proven to not work as hard as their counterparts. Detroit, Michigan and Burlington, Vermont were the two lowest-ranked cities on WalletHub’s list.
But before you start logging more hours in hopes of impressing your boss, it is important to note that working longer hours does not mean working harder.
“A less competent employee spending more time on a task is not more productive than a more competent one spending less time on it,” Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management said. “Lots of factors can impact the relationship between time worked and actual performance.”
In order to determine which cities outwork the rest of America, WalletHub compared the 116 largest cities across 11 key metrics. The data set ranges from the employment rate to average weekly work hours to the share of workers with multiple jobs.
