{"id":207850,"date":"2024-02-24T14:15:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T14:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/24\/high-paid-americans-are-working-less-hours-than-before-the-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:21:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:21:38","slug":"high-paid-americans-are-working-less-hours-than-before-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/24\/high-paid-americans-are-working-less-hours-than-before-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"High-paid Americans are working less hours than before the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/content.fortune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-1359562125-e1708711399330.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the unemployment rate near a 50-year low and businesses hiring left and right, it would seem the American worker is hustling like never before just to keep up with the rising cost of living.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>But not everyone is hustling equally.<\/p>\n<p>According to payroll provider ADP and its Research Institute, the highest-earning workers, as well as young workers and female workers, are working fewer hours than they did before the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The average workweek in 2023 was the lowest in five years, ADP found.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor significant cohorts of the population, including women, they\u2019re working less now than they did before the pandemic,\u201d said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. \u201cThere\u2019s never been more people working in America, and yet, individuals, on average, are working less.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-datawrapper wp-block-embed-datawrapper\">\n<p><iframe aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-2WXgX\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"460\" loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/2WXgX\/1\/\" style=\"border:none\" title=\"Average workweek, by year\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>ADP tracked 13 million hourly workers who kept the same job for four years ending last December\u2014meaning, the drop in hours wasn\u2019t because people were laid off or switched jobs. And while it\u2019s not clear if workers or employers initiated the drop, the pullback among the highest-paid provides a clue, Richardson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Workers in the highest-paid 25%\u2014those making $79,500 or above\u2014had the largest drop in hours worked. The lowest-paid, on the other hand, are working more. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-datawrapper wp-block-embed-datawrapper\">\n<p><iframe aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-ftrpd\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"500\" loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/ftrpd\/1\/\" style=\"border:none\" title=\"Year-over-year change in work hours, by pay level\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>What\u2019s more, a significant portion of people working fewer hours saw their incomes rise, not fall\u2014indicating that less work isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing for the budget bottom line.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mixed blessing of those double-digit wage gains [during the pandemic] is some people are able to make the same salary by working fewer hours a week,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cWe think this is a complication of the fact that some people experienced higher wage gains, and also had more flexibility to design their own schedules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you make a median $80,000 a year \u2026 for the most part you\u2019re not in the leisure and hospitality sector,\u201d she said. \u201cYou might be a knowledge worker, and that means you might have more flexibility now than before\u2014whether it&#8217;s doing more gig work, or having more flexibility over your hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-datawrapper wp-block-embed-datawrapper\">\n<p><iframe aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-0ypc3\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"500\" loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/0ypc3\/1\/\" style=\"border:none\" title=\"They cut back on work\u2014what happened to their pay?\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Other groups working fewer hours include women, as well as workers under 35, ADP found\u2014workers who are either required or able to prioritize other aspects of their lives besides paid labor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Historically, a large drop in hours worked is a bad sign: It means there&#8217;s less work for employees to do, and is often a first step employers take before laying off staff. But that may not be the case this time, economists said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOrdinarily it\u2019s a signal that demand is weak or there isn\u2019t as much for people to do,\u201d said Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But since companies have been hiring and overall layoffs remain low, there may be a different explanation: that \u201cfirms are hoarding workers, in a sense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn response to softening in demand, companies have been loath to lay anyone off. So instead there&#8217;s this idea that they might keep their workers but just work them less intensively,\u201d Hunter said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Richardson has a similar take, noting the pandemic made companies realize \u201cthey can\u2019t grow it and shrink [headcount] on demand, and they\u2019d rather have a deep bench and give each worker less playing time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat would be a huge shift from how they were thinking about talent before the pandemic,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also possible the change is an outgrowth of the disillusion with work many experienced during the pandemic and the Great Resignation, when tens of millions of people quit their jobs went into business for themselves, leading to a normalization of the \u201cwork to live\u201d perspective and an insistence on work-life balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this wouldn\u2019t be the first time that workers gravitated toward higher pay and less work. Over the centuries in which humanity went from primarily agrarian to an industrial and now post-industrial society, the workweek has <a href=\"https:\/\/eh.net\/encyclopedia\/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-47dba8f0-0 iRbseu styledLinkColor \">shrunk dramatically<\/a>, and more so in the social democracies of Western Europe. Indeed, compared with other developed nations, American workers still put in much longer hours than most, even with the recent tick downwards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you look at average hours worked across various countries, there&#8217;s huge variation, and the U.S. is pretty close to the top there,&#8221; said Hunter. &#8220;You could argue there&#8217;s scope for Americans to work less, [but] that\u2019s not for me to say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-cy=\"subscriptionPlea\">Subscribe to the CEO Daily newsletter to get the CEO perspective on the biggest headlines in business. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fortune.com\/newsletters\/ceo-daily?&amp;itm_source=fortune&amp;itm_medium=article_tout&amp;itm_campaign=ceo_daily\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"sc-47dba8f0-0 iRbseu styledLinkColor \">Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2024\/02\/24\/quiet-quitting-high-paid-workers-average-workweek\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] With the unemployment rate near a 50-year low and businesses hiring left and right, it would seem the American worker is hustling like never<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207850"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342494,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207850\/revisions\/342494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}