Labour market dynamics according the individual working hour tension (preferred working hours minus actual working hours) of active people with focus on the self-employed, as professions and entrepreneurs, and employees are investigated in our study. The individual longitudinal analysis based on panel data allows us to follow the individual process of working time preferences and actual outcomes in its individual convergence/divergence balancing process in the course of time. Our microanalytic and paneleconometric results (with pooled, one and two factor fixed and random effects models) quantify the working hour tension developments and its determinants in a decade from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. Microdata base is the German Socio-Economic Panel with ten waves from 1985 to 1994. Finally, we discuss impacts of our results for labour market strategies and a targeted economic and social policy.