I think it is more the application of the "work to rule" theory.

And the British work at least 42 hours per week, and are frightened to take breaks, because of job insecurity. The British are the slaves of the world thanks to their Governments

My Dutch colleagues (most of whom work fewer hours than I) insist that they work more efficiently than people in other countries. Maybe it's true?

Confirms what I've always thought - the Dutch are generally very efficient workers. None of this faffing about you so often see in US companies.

Sorry to ignore the question asked by the editor!

Glad to see that the Greeks are not "slacking of while the Dutch hard-working public pays them".

I always had the impression that the Dutch work less, but seem to think that they work more than others.
I've had Dutch people tell me that the southern Europeans are lazy! My experience has been the opposite.

So, Dutch government is still heavily taxing on the overtime salary. (My standard contract is 36 hours per week but I have to work by 40 hours. 4 hours extra is classified as overtime every week)

And there are so many blames on Greek, saying they have financial problem because of lazy.

The study results and conclusions in the article a bit superficial. They do not take into account that some EU countries have signoficantly longer leave whem they get kids amd start working full time after that, as opposed to NL where they have ultrashort initial leave and distribute then the rest via part time work.
Besides, think they forgot to include all of us foreigners who work full time and then some ;)

While the Dutch often say South europeans are lazy, this is totally untrue. However, the problems is that in my view in south European countries work is organized in a far less efficient way, hence more hours and far more stress for producing less results

to be honest, i think the expensive kind care system is the major reason for short working hours. 6.8hours per hour, if you want to send your child to kindopvang they calculate 11hours instead of 8hours, therefore for a normal family its unaffordable.

This kind of survey is very subjective. Dutch are efficient and productive worker and often bring work back home or work OT without being paid in $$$ but in time off. All these are never factored into the survey.

The Dutch invented the four day week, and you have to ask why everything takes so long here? Hardly surprising the shops are always closed is it.

With all due respect, the Netherlands is a nation in denial. Since I have lived here, 11 years, the government has fell 4 times.
The government stability aside, the socio-economic structure that exists encourages the Dutch population to work less and expect more.
This is the crux of the issue. The Dutch are more concerned about when they can have their next drink rather than producing something of value.

I have lived here 12 yrs & work 40 hrs per week. As do most people I know. The Dutch tax systemn penalises anyone who works more hours.
Re the thing about south Europeans being lazy. This is a piece of outdated propoganda from the 17th century. When most northern countries embraced the reformation & southern europe remained catholic, portraing southerners as lazy was just another propoganda tool.
I have worked in Italy & Spain & can tell you they work as hard as the Dutch.

I work 40 hrs per week & always have. I also have a friend, a single mother, who works three days per week & has to stop early to collect her youngest girl from school.
IMO, including part time work skews the figures.
If it were based only on full time work in each country it would give a more realistic figure.

More data are needed to interpret these results properly.

Could it simply be that Dutch women are more likely to be part of the workforce than women in other OECD countries?

Say that after giving birth they are more likely work part-time, leading the average number of working hours (per working person) to decrease. If a new mother would stop working altogether, she would not be included in the data, leading the average number of working hours to stay high. Therefore, more working mothers -> less average working hours per employed person, yet more people actually working.

I don't know if it's correct, but it's a possible interpretation.

@ana: Could it be that Dutch people actually work less (as a lot have told you already)? Rather than a global conspiracy to portray the Dutch as lazy? When calling southerners lazy its ok but when calling the Dutch it's a conspiracy??

Reading all those comments, you might thing that working less is a bad thing.

@Neo: No, in fact it's exactly like Ana says. I'm Romanian and if you compared NL to RO it's definitely the case. Factor in that the grey work market is significantly larger in some countries than others...
And who (apart from you) implied anything about a conspiracy? Chill out.