They forecast average weekly hours to tick down to 34.3 (from 34.4 in October).

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The figure for average weekly hours worked is still dropping slightly, indicating further slack in the labour market.

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Average weekly hours of work did not decline more than in previous bad recessions and have begun to increase.

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Very roughly, in the past half-century the average weekly hours worked by married women have tripled, while hours worked by men and single women have stayed about constant.

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And France's 35-hour legislation is full of loopholes: employers and unions in the engineering sector recently agreed to increase overtime and average weekly work-hours over the whole year.

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Similarly, a study of University of Chicago MBAs, with Marianne Bertrand, found that, a decade after graduation, women with children work on average 24% fewer weekly hours than men. (Women without children work about 3% fewer hours.) Only half of them work full-time.

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Aberdeenshire was also faced with less rainfall per year and slightly more weekly sunshine hours than the Scottish average.

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Official unemployment sits at 8.9%, average weekly earnings have declined the last three months, and the aggregate number of hours worked grew a paltry 0.2% in February, after showing no improvement in January.

FORBES: Written by Scott Albro