Malta has the highest “maximum allowed hours for a working week” among European Union countries, at 48 hours, while it comes second, with 12.5 hours, on the list for a “maximum working day”, according to statistics published by the European Industrial Relations Observatory.

In the first statistic, Malta joins 13 other countries, including Cyprus, Holland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg. A further 13 countries have a 40-hour working week maximum, while Belgium is the only country in the EU-27 that has a 38-hour working week maximum.

Collective bargaining on the duration of working time takes place in all countries within the framework of statutory rules on maximum working times.

In the EU and Norway, this should, at the least, respect the provisions of the Directive on certain aspects of the organisation of working time (originally adopted in 1993 and now consolidated in Directive 2003/88/EC, which include a 48-hour maximum working week, on average over a reference period not exceeding four months), a minimum daily rest period of 11 hours and a daily limit of eight hours for night workers.

With regard to the maximum working day, there are five countries with a 13-hour day: Cyprus, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and the UK, with Malta at 12.5 followed by Greece, Hungary and Lithuania with 12. Austria, France, Slovenia and Luxembourg follow with 10. A further 15 countries have either nine or eight hours, the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) said.

Malta comes very high up on the list based on the collectively agreed normal weekly hours in chemicals, with 40 hours, alongside Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden.

In the EU 15 and Norway, the average agreed weekly hours in chemicals stood at 38.4 hours in 2004 – the same figure as in 2000. There has been some relatively minor upward and downward movement in a few countries over the five-year period (though the data sources used for the EIRO figures have changed in some countries over the years).

In 2004 in the EU 15 and Norway, the longest weekly hours in chemicals (40) were found in Finland, Greece, Portugal and Sweden (though the Swedish figure is likely to be lower in practice, due to various working time reduction methods) and the shortest in France (35). The range, at five hours, is identical to that found for overall average weekly hours across the whole economy.

Working hours in chemicals are notably higher than the national whole-economy average in Finland, Germany, Holland and Portugal. Overall, the average agreed working week in chemicals, at 38.4 hours, is half an hour above the overall average. In Malta, employees in the chemicals industry work a 40-hour week.