Average number of work hours of a group of workers

Question

I would like to calculate the average number of work hours of a group of 2 workers as the table below:

Worker A has 2 days that he/she is working and Worker B has 1 day only.

To calculate the average number of work hours, should it be:

a) sum of number of work hours/count of the number of days of work i.e. $\frac{8+9+2}{3}$

or

b) average of the number of work hours of each worker i.e. $\frac{[(8+9)/2]+(2/1)}{2}$

Know that for b), averaging the average might not be a good practice, while for a)... can it also be defined as the average number of working hours per worker?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Either is an acceptable calculation. You need to determine what the purpose of the average is to determine which (if either) is useful. One gives the average number of hours worked per day, regardless of the worker. The other gives the average number of hours worked by a worker.