AGGREGATE HOURS

The sum of the hours worked by all employed people, either full or part time, during the course of a year. Aggregate hours can also refer to the total hours worked by one sector or group of workers.

Aggregate hours is a measure of the total labor required to produce real GDP. Because it reports a total number of hours, it generally provides a better measure for total labor than the number of people employed. Between the overtime hours, part-time and full-time jobs, the number of people employed cannot provide as accurate a quantifiable measure of total labor.