Are Employers Requiring People to Work Longer Hours?

Working hours of employees are falling down according to some surveys. One of the survey asserted that employees have to work more in order to keep what was produced by the formerly larger work force. The surveys for monthly household do not suggest that such a pattern is widespread, because they measure that average weekly hours worked per employed person have fallen to 37.8 in 2009 from 39.0 in 2007. Another survey also measures hours worked, with a similar result. So it seems that the number of people employed and the hours they work have fallen, creating a huge drop in the economy’s total work hours. However, sometimes working hours can be misleading, because reporters use round number even though actual numbers are not round number.  

In this chart, the blue line is based on the household survey and is an index of the average number of hours worked by adults. We can see that only two percent increase from 2003 to 2006, but suddenly this fall down. The red line is also an index of hours worked per person, but based on the time diary methodology. This actually shows there was a mild recession in 2004, because hours worked per person were lower that year than in the surrounding years. Also unlike the household survey, this suggests that work hours in 2007 were abnormally high by comparison with all previous years. Both of lines confirm that hours worked dropped after 2007 and although a few employers may require their workers to work longer hours, the typical pattern since 2007 is fewer hours per employee, and fewer employees. As this article relates to what I've study until now, I can realize that supply curve will shift to left if employers hire fewer employee and they work fewer hours.