In survey of hardest-working cities, Minneapolis lags

Minneapolitans who are accustomed to seeing their city and state at the top of most any ranking shouldn’t be too shocked by the fact that when it comes to hard-working cities, the city doesn’t abide.

That Minneapolis, which finished 18th in the ranking from SmartAsset, finished as high as it did is a little surprising. Minnesota, at least in the warm weather, does not recognize Friday as a day of work. And the survey’s methodology makes it nearly impossible to compete, given that the average number of hours worked in a week is one of the benchmarks.

The Minneapolis labor market recorded only 36.8 a week on average, or 1,087 hours per year, well behind Arlington, Virginia, which finished at the top of the heap with 41.5 hours per week. Why? Government jobs, the survey says.

Curiously, Seattle — another one of the “cool” cities in most surveys in which Minneapolis excels — ranks #6 in the survey while working fewer hours per week (38) than Minneapolis. But it makes up for it by working more weeks per year than any other city (37.32). Minneapolis worked 36.12 weeks per year.

2016-hardest-working-cities-1-table

Detroit came in last in the survey.