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Columbia proved itself to be the hardest working American city this year, according to an April article on forbes.com. Just more than a week ago, our journalistic friends from across the pond, the BBC, released a survey that listed the United States as being below average in annual number of hours worked per employee.

That might seem like a lot of information. Well, it is, so let’s break it down.

The survey, which Forbes posted from a study conducted by Parade Magazine, compiled the list of America’s hardest working cities by the criteria of total number of hours worked, unemployment rates, commute times, the number of double income families, and the likelihood of people giving up personal time for work. Columbia found itself atop the list of 25 mainly due to its largest employers, eight colleges and six hospitals, and that 80 percent of households are dual-income says Maggie Murphy, editor of PARADE Magazine. The data came from Mediamark Research Inc., Claritas, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.

The BBC ranked the hardest working countries in the world according to average number of annual hours worked per employee. NOTE: More hours does not necessarily translate into harder working or more productive workers. We also need to keep in mind that this study was conducted only using the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. The United States average annual hours per worker was calculated to be 1695 hours. That falls slightly below the OECD average of 1719 hours per year. Just to let you know that the BBC isn’t unfairly badmouthing the United States: the United Kingdom was listed even lower at 1647 hours per week. A working hours expert (apparently they have those over in Europe) from the International Labor Organization, Jon Messenger, says that Asian countries have continued to lead the way in hours worked and percentage of workers who work more than 48 hours per week. He also says that much of this stems from the need to fulfill a minimum output of various sorts, not necessarily because workers feel the need to work harder or more efficiently.

What does all of this mean? First, to all the employees who reside in Columbia, keep working hard. In today’s stagnant economy this is an award that should be kept with the highest regards. Secondly, the United States works just as hard as any other country to provide a future for the children of its nation. We can just do it in more efficient ways than other countries (i.e. more part time jobs, information driven jobs, working from home and so on).