日本の労働時間は世界でも長いほうだ。
I guess the sentence means something along the lines of "Even within the [whole] world, the working hours in Japan are long". But I think it could be expressed simply without the「ほうだ」bit:
日本の労働時間は世界でも長い。
I know that 「方【ほう】」can mean direction; side; way or manner, but none of these meanings seems to fit well here. According to the dictionary, there is also the meaning "type, category" which could be a good candidate. I'm thinking of something like working hours of the "long type" (長いほう), but I'm just speculating.
I also have the feeling that some sort of comparison is happening here as ほう is used for comparison in patterns such as (〜より 、〜ほうが), where the working time in Japan is being compared to the working time in the world, but I can't figure it out.
Mind I'm not sure about the 「世界でも」part, so if my "even within the world" translation is not right, please feel free to correct it as well.
よろしくお願いします!