Nearly Half of U.S. Knowledge Workers Often Work on Sundays

Nearly half of 2,000 full-time U.S. knowledge workers surveyed in 2026 said they often worked at least a few hours on Sundays, while other responses ranged from message checks to no Sunday work.

That 45% combines two groups: 21% reported spending a full or nearly full day working, while 24% often put in a few hours. The first category captures a long Sunday work period; the second describes shorter stretches that respondents said they worked often. Together, they cover recurring work measured in hours, not every form of Sunday contact.

A broader 74% reported some Sunday activity, but that total includes people with different habits. Eleven percent said they quickly checked messages, 18% rarely worked and 26% never worked Sundays. The 29-percentage-point gap between 45% and 74% matches the quick-message and rare-work categories combined. The broader figure therefore counts quick checks and rare work alongside those who often spent hours working.

Interest in microshifting was also common. Sixty-one percent were interested in breaking their workday into brief sessions arranged around personal priorities, such as parenting, health, energy or productivity. That response records a scheduling preference; it does not establish that those respondents shifted work into Sundays or did so for any particular reason.

Other answers addressed job retention and workload. Thirty-eight percent fit the pattern called “job hugging”: They said they were holding onto positions they had moved beyond amid anxiety about changing jobs. Separately, 62% said artificial intelligence had raised expectations for how much they should complete during the workday, and 38% reported meeting fatigue.

These responses describe separate dimensions of work life. The results do not connect an individual worker’s Sunday schedule with their interest in shorter work blocks, job concerns or views about AI-related expectations. They therefore do not show that worries about changing jobs or heavier daily workloads are causing people to work Sundays.

The percentages describe the surveyed group of full-time U.S. knowledge workers, rather than all U.S. employees. The five Sunday-work responses span a full or nearly full day, a few hours, quick message checks, rare work and no work. Keeping those categories distinct shows why the share often spending hours on Sundays is lower than the share reporting any Sunday activity.