Are Managers and Professionals Really Working More? 

Dream Career News ezine
by Kent Johnson
http://www.careeradrenaline.com

Issue: June 20, 2005

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Are Managers and Professionals Really Working More?

This is a question that the government asked several years ago, and they did a study to see if they could find out the answer.  Here's what they found:

More than 60 percent of the net employment growth during the 1990s occurred among managers and professionals, occupations
in which long workweeks are quite typical.

Coincident with this rise in employment
has been the perception that managers and professionals
are working longer workweeks than
in the past. However, weekly hours data for
such occupations show that the average workweek
has been about 42 hours during the entire
decade and, in fact, has shown little variation
since 1982.

A substantial share of managers and professionals
do put in extraordinarily long workweeks.
In 1999, nearly 3 in 10 worked 49
hours or more per week, compared with about
2 in 10 for all nonfarm occupations. Moreover,
of the men employed as managers and
professionals, about 4 in 10 worked at least
49 hours per week, twice the share among
women.

these proportions rose steadily during the
1980s, but showed no further increase in the
1990s. Because data from January 1994 forward
are not directly comparable to those for
earlier years due to a redesign of the CPS, one
is cautioned to view the periods from 1989 to
1993 and from 1994 to 1999 separately. Even
so, there has been very little change in any of
these series since 1989. Similar trends occurred
for the proportion of managers and
professionals working 60 hours or more per
week.

Indeed, the number of managers and professionals
working long workweeks has increased,
but so too has the number working
fewer than 49 hours per week. Since 1994,
the number of persons at work in these occupations
has risen by about 6.5 million, to 38.6
million. The number working 49 hours or more
has increased by nearly 1.8 million, to 10.8 million.
Of the net employment increase among
managers and professionals, however, the share
of those working 49 hours or more is still about
28 percent.

As for managers and professionals overall,
there was relatively little change in average
weekly hours for managers and professionals
separately during the 1990s.

Among both men and women, the average
workweek for managers and professionals
alike remained about unchanged over the
past 10 years, with managers working more
hours per week than professionals. Women
make up a growing share of all managers and
professionals, and they tend to have shorter
workweeks than do men. 

In the short-run, however, these factors have little effect on
overall average weekly hours of managers and
professionals. If women’s shares of these occupations
had remained at the 1994 level, average
weekly hours for the group overall still
would have changed little, edging up by only
1 The source of these data is the Bureau of Labor
Statistic Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly
sample survey of about 50,000 households. (The
current occupational classification system used in
the CPS has been in effect since 1982.)
0.2 hour to 42.1 hours by 1999, compared with
the actual change of 0.1 hour.

The hours series presented here are for all
managerial and professional workers, both full
and part-time, but the hours trends for those
who usually work full time show very little
change, as well.

Stable weekly work hours are not necessarily
incompatible with the perception of busier
schedules among managers and professionals.
The perception could reflect changes in time
spent on other activities (commuting, for example),
more intense pressure during work
hours, the increased workload of one’s spouse,
or other factors.



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Copyright (c) 2005 by Kent Johnson
Author, publisher, career coach
"Helping people realize their dreams one career at a time."
Searching for your dream career? Visit the popular
http://careeradrenaline.com for more info


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