Only 31 percent of employed Americans work a 40-hour week, a new Rasmussen national telephone survey suggests.

The survey, conducted this past week, found that 40 percent of Americans now work more than 40 hours per week, including nine percent who work more than 50 hours per week.

Last May, Rasmussen found that 33 percent of Americans worked more than 40 hours per week, including 11 percent who worked more than 50 hours weekly. The most recent survey suggests that, in just seven months, the number of Americans working more than 40 hours per week has increased.

According to the survey published Friday, 28 percent of Americans now work less than 40 hours per week, which is a drop of six points from 34 percent in the May survey.

The survey of 623 employed adults had a margin of sampling error of +/- three percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

In a Rasmussen survey released in November, Americans were found to be more pessimistic about the U.S. job market than they have been in nearly two years.

Of the 1,000 adults surveyed, just 19 percent believed the job market is better than it was one year ago, a decline of six points from September and the lowest finding since December of 2011.