How Many Hours Are There In a Working Year? – Why Is It Important To Know?

If you are a part of a work culture where you work 5 days a week, you may be clocking in at least 8 hours per day in and day out all year round. However, have you ever wondered how many hours are there in a working year for you? Just how many hours do you work in a year?

The question might have crossed your mind at one point if you had been part of the grind for many years. Or, if you have just started your professional career, whether, in full-time employment or part-time work, the knowledge of how many working hours you actually put in a year may prove quite useful. 

You can use this information to evaluate various aspects of your professional and personal life. Having this knowledge in the early phase of your work may put many things in perspective for you. 

Read on as we explore how many hours there are in a working year and what aspects need to be considered. We will also shed light on why it is important to understand these numbers and use the information for your benefit. 

How Many Hours Are There in a Working Year?

How do you really calculate the number of hours in a working year? There are two ways to approach this. You can either draw a standard calculation by assuming an eight-hour day work shift in a five-day workweek, and you get your total weekly hours of work (8hr * 5days/wk). Multiply this number by the number of weeks in a year, and you will have your answer. 

However, there is a second approach, which is specific to your case or personal circumstances, assuming your working hours vary from the standard hours. If you do not keep regular working hours or have alternative work schedules, you should keep track of the total time you spend doing your job based on your flexible work schedule. 

Here is a simple approach that you can use to calculate the number of hours you work in a year.

1. Calculate the Number of Hours You Work in a Week.

First, the total number of your working hours a week needs to be counted. 

Suppose you do not follow the standard time duration during the week. In that case, you can also consider the number of hours you put in on different days of the week and add the number of hours you work on different days during the week, and then, add the numbers to get a cumulative figure for 1 week.

For instance, if you work for 8 hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and work 9 hours on Tuesday and Thursday, you have worked 42 hours in a week. On the other hand, if you follow the conventional 8 hours a day pattern, you will have worked for 40 hours in a week.

2. Calculate a Value for the Year.

The next thing to do now is to determine a number for the year. A year has 52 weeks, and if you multiply this number by the average number of hours you calculated for 1 week, you will have a number that reveals how many hours you work in a year.

Let’s assume that a workweek for you has 40 hours. In that case, the total number of hours worked for a year would be 2080.

3. Consider the Deductibles.

Now comes the interesting part! The calculation we provided in the last section is based on the assumption that you did not take any time off during the year. However, this rarely happens. So, we need to consider a few numbers that impact the calculation of hours for a working year.

a. Paid Time Off

One crucial calculation in this regard is the number of hours for your paid time off. You spend them out of the office while you are paid for these hours. Organizations usually provide paid vacation time and sick leaves under this category.

If, in a year, you have utilized all of your paid-time-off hours, you will calculate standard time as per company policy or your contract. However, if you have not utilized all of the paid-time-off hours, you will only consider the number of paid hours you have spent out of the office.

Let’s consider a generic scenario. If you work in a company that gives 14 days of vacation and allows up to 7 days of sick leave every year, you have 21 days of annual leave or paid time off. Now let’s assume that you follow a standard 40-hour week pattern and have used all paid-time off hours. 

In that case, you have 168 (21×8) paid-time off hours. You will need to deduct this value from the total we calculated in the previous section.

b. Paid Holidays 

The second consideration is the holiday pay and paid holidays that your company allows. For instance, let’s assume you are entitled to and get around ten days as paid holidays in a year. Again, following the assumption of an 8-hour workday, you get 80 (10 x 8) paid holiday hours in a year. 

4. Adding the Deductible Hours.

The next step is to add the number of hours for paid time off (PTO) and paid holidays to calculate your total time off in a year. 

Continuing from our example, it would be 168 + 80= 248 hours per year in this case.

5. Subtracting Total Time Off From Total Hours in a Working Year.

It is now time to consider all the values calculated in the previous steps and calculate the final figure. Here is what the standard formula may look like:

No. of hours per week x 52- [no. of PTO hours + no. of paid holiday hours] = total no. of hours in a working year

Here is what the calculation would look like if we used the numbers from the example shared above:

40 x 52 – [168 + 80] = total no. of hours in a working year

2080 – 248 = 1832

Therefore, if we assume standard values, your working year will have a total of 1832 hours.

Standard Year

A standard year has 365 days or 52 weeks, to be precise. A 52-hour week translates into 2080 hours in the corporate set-up, assuming a 40-hour workweek. Again turning to the example used in the previous section, if you get 21 days of paid time off and ten days of paid holidays, a working year will have 1832 hours for you.

While this calculation is handy in calculating your hourly rate based on your cumulative salary figure, it is only applicable if you follow a standard 8 hours a day, 5 days week schedule. If your work schedule deviates from the norm and is variable, these calculations may not work for you.

Leap Year

While a standard year has 365 days, a leap year has one additional day, as February has 29 days instead of 28. Depending on the year, the additional day could be a weekday or fall on a weekend depending on the year. 

So, if you were to calculate your working hours for that particular year, you would have to consider the calendar for that specific year and carry out your calculations accordingly.

Work Days in Each Year 

In this section, we have put together a list of workdays each year for the next five years beginning from January 2022 till December 2026.

DAYS	2026	2025	2024	2023	2022
Monday	52	52	53	52	52
Tuesday	52	52	53	52	52
Wednesday	52	53	52	52	52
Thursday	53	52	52	52	52
Friday	52	52	52	52	52
Total Work Days	261	261	262	260	260
Total Work Hours	2088	2088	2096	2080	2080

How Many Hours Are There in a Year?

While a standard working year has 2080 hours, give or take a few, a year has 8760 hours (24 hours x 365 days). 

If you work in a corporate set-up that has implemented a 9 am – 5 pm schedule for 5 working days from Monday to Friday, this value may hold little significance for you. However, if you work in a set-up with variable work hours or even days, knowing the total hours in a year may help you assess how many hours you are clocking in at work and what percentage they constitute of the total figure.

Even if you follow a standard work schedule, knowing the number of total hours in a year may help you assess your time spent at work.

For instance, we calculated that a standard year might have 1832 working hours earlier. If a year has a total of 8760 hours, it implies that you are spending almost one-fourth of your time at your job [1832/8760 * 100 = 20.9%].

Why Is It Important to Know How Many Hours Are There in a Year?

Earlier, we suggested that knowing how many hours you work in a year may put various things in perspective and help you assess your dynamics better. Let’s look at a few reasons why it is important to know how many hours are there in a working year.

Consider Work-Life Balance.

Once you determine how many hours you contribute to work in a year, you may be able to assess whether you have healthy work dynamics and if your work-life balance is appropriate. 

If you are putting in too many long hours at work and not being able to focus on your personal life and general well-being, you may have to reconsider your work dynamics. Overdoing it by not having normal working hours may negatively impact your health and quality of life in the long run. 

Calculate Your Hourly Rate and Annual Income.

If you are working on an hourly rate, knowing the total number of working hours in a year may help you calculate the income you earn. Similarly, if you work variable hours in a year, the total hours in a working year may help you assess how much you are paid for an hour of work.

These calculations may help you assess if the pay rate is justified and whether all the hard work, especially over time and night-work shifts, is worth the effort. 

You can also check whether you are getting fair wages. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), all employees who work in the private sector and Federal, State, and local governments should be compensated the minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour. 

However, several states also have their minimum wage laws. If both federal and state have different minimum wage rates, the higher wage applies. 

In case you are wondering, there is no such thing as maximum working hours in a working week for employees 16 years or older in the US. So, there is no limit on the number of hours you may work each week. That is if you want that.

Plan and Organize Your Time Off.

Once you know how much time is contributed to work and how much time you have off in a particular year, you may be able to plan your leisure time better. It may help you appreciate the value of free time and motivate you to spend it productively with your loved ones.

Conclusion – How Many Hours Are There in a Working Year?

Having an idea and even the exact data about your hours of work may have opened your mind to further questions on how to put this information to good use. What’s the point of knowing how many hours are in a working year if you cannot turn that knowledge into an instrument for your own empowerment and well-being? 

We hope that the points and suggestions on time, value, and priorities we provided in this article can assist your journey in making your professional and personal life work best for you. Your time is in your hands; make it matter.