Work is a fundamental concept that refers to the participation of labor in the production process and has evolved throughout history by undergoing various transformations. In line with capitalist production processes and neoliberal policies, “work” has increasingly come to be regarded as an input whose return is determined in labor markets. While the related literature generally addresses the issue within the framework of employment, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth indicators, the dynamic relationship between weekly actual working hours and the number of persons at work has been largely overlooked. In this study, this relationship is examined for the case of Turkey using an asymmetric and time-varying Toda–Yamamoto bootstrap causality test. The findings indicate that the relationship between working hours and the number of persons at work varies across periods and that, in particular, reductions in actual working hours may increase employment. In addition, the results show that long working hours can generate exclusionary effects on employment; in other words, the so-called “work paradox,” defined as “becoming unemployed as one works more,” may be valid under certain economic conditions. The analysis also reveals that male and female employment can substitute for each other in specific periods. Based on these findings, the study argues that labor market policies should be designed by taking both working hours and employment status into account.