The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed that higher proportion of workers in urban centers work excessively compared to workers in the rural areas.

This, the service warned wear out workers, affects productivity, their health, safety and work-life balance.

According to the GSS, a common threshold defined for excessive working hours is 48 hours per week.

“Adequate working time is a crucial part of decent work. It represents a key element of working conditions and has a great impact on workers’ income, well-being, and living conditions. Mean weekly hours actually worked per employed person by sex, age and working time arrangement”, the report titled “National Report on Productivity, Employment, and Growth”, said.

The report showed that about 7 percent of employed people are estimated to be working more than 48 hours a week, declining consistently to about 4 percent in the third quarter of 2023.

In addition, the gender dimension shows male workers working excessively higher than their female counterparts.

The GSS said the observations suggest decent work concerns are higher among males than females and among urban than rural workers in respect of decent work time.