Full-time American employees reported working an average of 47 hours per week, which means the 40-hour work week is no longer the norm, a survey conducted by Gallup said.

According to the survey, which covered 1,271 full-time employed adults in the United States, four in 10 of the respondents said they work at least 50 hours a week while around 50 percent said they typically work more than 40 hours.

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Only less than 40 percent of the full-time workers in the US said they work at exactly 40 hours a week. That means they have been following the 9-to-5 standard schedule set by the federal employment laws.

The survey also showed that only 8 percent of all the respondents claimed they work less than 40 hours a week on average.

According to Gallup, several factors are contributing to the long work weeks for American employees and one of which is the pay structure.

The firm said that other employers cannot afford to pay contract workers for overtime works, forcing hourly employees to stick to the 40-hour work week or less. This is not the case for salaried workers, Gallup said, because the survey showed that full-time workers normally spend around five hours more per week.

Gallup also said some workers have taken a second job to add up to their income, making them stay longer in the office. Around 86 percent of all full-time workers have just one job, while 12 percent carry two, and about 1 percent balance three jobs or more.

The result of the work week survey, however, is not new for American workers because the trend has been on for the last 14 years, except in Gallup's 2004-2005 survey where the work week dropped to just under 45 hours.

TagsUS Work Week, US Labor