toronto work life balance

Toronto ranked the 13th best city in the world for work-life balance

The average Toronto office employee gets to work around 9:13 a.m., spends just over 40 hours on the job per week, takes 15 paid vacation days per year and spends roughly 80 minutes of every day commuting.

This, according to a newly-published analysis based on data from labour organizations, government statistical departments, census bureaus and private intelligence firms.

Kisi, an American access control system developer, just released its own ranking of "Cities for the Best Work-Life Balance" in 2019 as "a guideline for cities to benchmark their ability to support the fulfillment of residents' lives."

A total of 40 cities were chosen for the ranking, all of them "in-demand metropolises" with an abundance of reliable data available to researchers.

Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa are all represented on the list in terms of Canadian cities, all of them with remarkably similar scores across many of the 20 factors used by Kisi to determine "work-life balance."

With a total score of 72.55 out of 100, Vancouver edged out both Ottawa and Toronto, which boasted scores of 72.11 and 63.55 respectively.

Much of this has to do with Toronto's longer commute times, high "city stress" score and lower rates of access to outdoor spaces.

Still, out of all 40 international cities ranked, Toronto performed quite well, landing in 13th place overall (Vancouver and Ottawa came in 10th and 11th.)

Helsinki, Finland, Munich, Germany and Oslo, Norway round out the top three, while Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tokyo, Japan, and Buenes Aires, Argentina are ranked the worst three cities for work-life balance.

Not a single U.S. city cracked the top 15. The closest was San Diego, where unemployment is low, but so too are the average number of vacation days taken at 9.7.

You can see the full breakdown of how all 40 cities stacked up in terms of work intensity, institutional support, legislation and livability but here's the ranking of the top 15 cities.

  1. Helsinki
  2. Munich
  3. Oslo
  4. Hamburg
  5. Stockholm
  6. Berlin
  7. Zurich
  8. Barcelona
  9. PAris
  10. Vancouver
  11. Ottawa
  12. London
  13. Toronto
  14. Budapest
  15. Sydney
Lead photo by

torontotone


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