Busting the Myth of Long IT Work Weeks

In one of its recent reports on the U.S. workforce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that information technology workers don't work the long hours that the media and, well, the IT industry have portrayed. The average computer professional works 42 hours and 24 minutes a week, according to the BLS. That's the lightest work week of any professional group save one -- that would be educators, trainers and librarians, who average 41 hours and 18 minutes a week, blogger Eric Chabrow of CIO Insight journal wrote in his blog.

To top it off, Chabrow points out, IT workers as a group had the fewest portion of workers working the insane 60-plus hours a week: 7 percent of IT professionals say they work those long hours. Legal professionals have the largest percentage of workers (15 percent) who say they work more than 60 hours a week.

Another interesting fact in the BLS survey, Chabrow points out: The number of women working in the IT field dropped by 75,000 from 2000 to 2006. Chabrow, using that statistic, busts another myth: Women are leaving the IT field because of the long hours, which leaves less time for family. If that is not the case, then what gives?

As expected, many readers questioned BLS' stats when Chabrow first wrote about the survey findings in April.