As per December 2004 issue of National Geographic Magazine and based on a report by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development):
"Americans may think they work a lot, but the average employee in South Korea worked 2,390 hours in 2003. That's almost 600 hours more than the average worker in the United States and a colossal 1,053 hours more than Norvegian workers"
Here comes yet another contradiction to our traditional beleifs:
We Persians say: "boro kar mikon magoo chist kar - ke sarmayeye javedanist kar" (go to work without asking - since work is the eternal investment) and great American pioneers say: "Evil (or devil?) lies in idle hands"
According to this interesting report: "once a nation cultivates wealth, work hours tend to drop" Shall we call the new millenium the age of abolition of traditional values?" Not so fast though, we still have another proverb in Persian which may well define the upside down trend in working hours of well developed industrial countries: "favvareh chon boland shavad, sarnegoon shavad" (the fountain will fall down when reached to its peak"