Whether you're new to corporate America or offered a new salaried position, figuring out how many work hours are in a year will help you determine what you'll make based on hourly pay. Keep in mind though, many states and companies have different rules and expectations for how many hours you will be required to work outside of a standard work week.
Total Work Hours in a Year
To calculate how many hours are in a standard work week first multiply the number of hours by the number of weeks in a calendar year. A standard work week is 40 hours and there are 52 weeks in a year, therefore there are 2,080 hours (40 * 52 = 2,080) in a "normal" work year. If your working hours will be less than (or greater than) 40 hours you will want to multiply those hours by 52 weeks; there are 260 days in a typical work year.
** If you are going to be in accounting or payroll this will become engrained in your memory; and a half year is 1,040 hours. This is frequently used in accounting and finance for payroll planning purposes.
Full-Time Hours per Year
Fortunately many companies don't work employees 5 days a week all 52 weeks of the year (unless you are in the retail industry); often a business will offer holidays, vacation time, and sick time. With this, if you are interested in seeing what your hourly pay is based on these "freebies," then you will want to subtract those hours from the standard 2,080 work hours. For example, if the company you work for offers 6 holidays, 5 days of sick time, and 5 days of vacation you would subtract (6*8 + 5*8 + 5*8 = 128) 128 hours from 2,080 annual hours.
Keep in mind you can divide your annual salary by the number of hours to determine what your hourly pay is, or you can multiply hourly pay by the total number of work hours to converty your pay to a gross annual wage (or salary).
How To Put This Information Into Action
To determine what a yearly salary should be based on hourly pay, if an hourly pay schedule exists, multiply the number of hours by the suggested pay. For example, if ShoeBurger Corp has recently offered you an hourly position to manage the SugarShak with starting hourly pay of $22/hour and they offer 40 hours paid sick time, 40 hours of vacation time, but they don't pay for holidays (there are 5 days a year that they consider a holiday). If we know the standard hours in a year are 2,080 but ShoeBurger won't pay you for 5 days (8 hours * 5 days = 40 hours), then your annual work hours will be 2,040 and you will earn $44,880 (2,040 hours * $22/hour) per year.
Alternatively, assume ShoeBurger Corp offers you an annual salary of $62,000. Considering the same scenario as before, with a normal work year being 2,080 hours receiving 40 hours sick, 40 hours vacation paid time, but 40 hours unpaid holiday time, your annual hours would be 2,040. Given this we would take the offered salary of $62,000 and divide it by 2,040 hours which is equivalent to $30.39 (rounded) per hour.
One last comment: Keep in mind that this is gross annual pay and does not take into consideration taxes, other deductions (such as 401k), or potential over-time that is earned. While there are many factors that could influence taxes and other deductions, a ballpark rule of thumb is to subtract about 25%-30% from your gross to come up with your net pay. For example, if your annual salary is $60,000 then to figure out what your approximate net pay for the year will be subtract 25% from your gross. In this case 25% is equivalent to $15,000, so your net take home pay will be about $45,000 after taxes.
Additional Resources:
Yearly Wage Conversion
What is Annual Income