Work

After exploring the way people live across Europe, we decided to look at the way we ‘Work’ – to gain an insight into our differing attitudes and conditions. We therefore analysed sets of data that showed things such as the number of hours we work, how much we earn, our educational backgrounds and different occupations.

Explore the app and play around with the data to see what you can find out about our working habits. We’ve also been in and highlighted the areas we’ve found especially interesting.

Education

When it comes to education, who in Europe holds the most university degrees? And does a higher level of education lead to a happier life?

Salary

It’s also interesting to look at education against salary – you’ll notice that people in Luxembourg earn the most on average per year, but they don’t necessarily need to spend as long in education. In fact, the Scandinavian countries spend the most years in education – nearly 20 years on average, although they are also fairly high on the salary chart as a result.

Working Hours

Looking at the length of time we spend working, you’ll notice that the workforce in Greece has the longest working hours on average – nearly 42 hours a week. In comparison, the Netherlands work the shortest hours, just over 30 a week – but this doesn’t have an impact on salary. They are actually the 4th best-paid country across the EU.

Productivity

But how productive are we actually being in our jobs? We compared productivity level by country and found that Poland, Latvia and Estonia are the least productive – bringing in only €16 per hour worked. Luxembourg deserve their higher pay though, it would seem, as they are the most productive workforce across the continent – earning an impressive €54 per hour.

Employment

Employment figures on the whole weren’t overly surprising, with unemployment in Germany the least likely, while unemployment in Greece and Spain the most likely.