Grammar question

[Curious to know]

Dear teacher,

Are the following sentences acceptable grammatically ?

1) The working hours for this company are too long.
or
The working hours for this company is too long.

Will the above sentence be correct if I use "is" instead of "are" ?

2) The phrase " How are you " is used widely in many Asian countries. Is this phrase acceptable in native-speaking countries ( England, Australia, Canada, NZ ). Can I say
" How's thing" ?

[RedMtl]

Dear teacher,

Are the following sentences acceptable grammatically ?

1) The working hours for this company are too long.
or
The working hours for this company is too long.

Will the above sentence be correct if I use "is" instead of "are" ?

2) The phrase " How are you " is used widely in many Asian countries. Is this phrase acceptable in native-speaking countries ( England, Australia, Canada, NZ ). Can I say
" How's thing" ?

1) The first example is correct. The second is not correct. "Working hours" is plural, even if it appears to masquerade as a collective singular.

2) The question "How are you?" is perfectly correct. "How's thing" is not correct. However, slangily, one might say: "How's things?" to mean "How are things going?"

Hope this helps.