8+Tabling Americans And 4 Tabling Europeans

[Peter McDermott]

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Try this thought experiment. Assume your goverment mandates 50 weeks of paid vacation per year, and only 2 weeks of work. Do you really believe companies could still pay the same wages? Auto factories would see production drop by 95%, their revenues from selling those cars would also drop by 95%. Do you really think they'd have enough money to pay the same wages?


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But this scenario gives the worker *more* freedom, not less. He can either choose to take his paid leave and have more free time, or he can work his paid leave and have more money. In the American scenario, if the boss says that you get two weeks leave a year and you decide you want four, you're out on your arse.
Ergo Europeans are actually *freer* than Americans!

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The more hours you work, the more you produce and the more valuable you are to employers. Even if salaried. In a competitive labor (er, labour) market, on average you'll see the benefit of extra work, either through promotions, raises, or a higher offer from a competitive firm. All other things being equal, an employee who comes in at 7 am, and leaves at 7 pm, working hard the entire time, is worth more than a twin who comes in at 9 am, and leaves at 5 pm, even if the twin works equally hard whilst in the office.

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There's an abundance of research that shows that we're only effective when we work a certain number of hours a day. Once you start to go over that number, you start to become less effective and less productive, not more so.

And if it takes me four hours to do the same amount of work that it takes my more diligent twin eight to do, then I can either choose whether I want to invest that extra time in my future employment prospects, or I can choose whether I prefer to enjoy it as free time now.

In the US professional workplace culture where everybody seems to work ludicrous hours simply because that's what's expected, regardless of how effective they are during that time period, employees seem to me to be both less happy and, once again, less free.

[Peter McDermott]

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God I love threads that treat Europe as a country

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UK Peter felt the need to defend France with his descriptions of London. If you guys want to treat it the same, we will too.

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I wasn't defending France at all. No Englishman ever would.

I was attacking America.

[Gaahl]

It always amuses me when cocky americans talk about "poor" Europe.. What was your debt again? I also heard the dollar is skye high these days...

In Norway the minimum wage is 3 times as high as it is in the US...

[NickMPK]

The problem for Americans is that there is basically no market for vacation time. Wages may be set by the market by and large, but vacation time is set by cultural norms and is very inflexible. There are very few jobs where you can negotiate more vacation time in exchange for a lower wage. I'm not really sure why this is, but it is unfortunate.

More and more, Americans are forced to work more than 40 hours a week, with little room for negotiation. This is true at both the bottom and top of the food chain. The only place where it isn't is the middle, where the government and union jobs lie. Lower-wage workers have to work overtime just to feed their families, and professionals have to work overtime if they don't want to kill their future career prospects.

[DesertCat]

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More and more, Americans are forced to work more than 40 hours a week, with little room for negotiation. This is true at both the bottom and top of the food chain. The only place where it isn't is the middle, where the government and union jobs lie. Lower-wage workers have to work overtime just to feed their families, and professionals have to work overtime if they don't want to kill their future career prospects.

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This is a canard repeated by certain politicians trying to scare people into voting for them. Americans are statistically working less than ever before and making more money.

[DesertCat]

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But this scenario gives the worker *more* freedom, not less. He can either choose to take his paid leave and have more free time, or he can work his paid leave and have more money. In the American scenario, if the boss says that you get two weeks leave a year and you decide you want four, you're out on your arse.
Ergo Europeans are actually *freer* than Americans!


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Well the problem is that your first job is probably the one you are most skilled at and highly compensated for. An auto worker who is given more free time isn't financially better off working his free time as a clerk in a convenience store. Clearly the more hours on the assembly line the more income they'll make.

Economically we all have our highest and best occupations. Being limited to doing that part time so you are forced to work a less lucrative occupation the rest of the time isn't freedom. And there is a great deal more flexibility in american jobs than you realize. At every company I've worked at flexible job arrangements were the norm, not the exception.


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There's an abundance of research that shows that we're only effective when we work a certain number of hours a day. Once you start to go over that number, you start to become less effective and less productive, not more so.


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This is somewhat true, though job dependent on how big an effect it is. But since you still produce more each hour you work, even if it's a lessor rate, that's still being effective.

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In the US professional workplace culture where everybody seems to work ludicrous hours simply because that's what's expected, regardless of how effective they are during that time period, employees seem to me to be both less happy and, once again, less free.

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I had forgotten how cheery the brits were with their working conditions in that documentary, "The Office". Clearly it's only americans who gripe about work.

My experience is it's simply a matter of motivation. Some of your workers will be very ambitious, some will have other priorities such as home life, the best management is to let each group achieve their own balance and reward each for their contributions.

[NickMPK]

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More and more, Americans are forced to work more than 40 hours a week, with little room for negotiation. This is true at both the bottom and top of the food chain. The only place where it isn't is the middle, where the government and union jobs lie. Lower-wage workers have to work overtime just to feed their families, and professionals have to work overtime if they don't want to kill their future career prospects.

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This is a canard repeated by certain politicians trying to scare people into voting for them. Americans are statistically working less than ever before and making more money.

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This is clearly not true. If you have some sort of evidence of this, please share it.

Fifty years ago, most women worked zero hours a week, and about half of men had union jobs. Now, most people of both sexes work full time jobs, and I have seen no evidence that the vacation time or average hours/per worked have gone down.

Also, I hear almost no politicians campaigning for a shorter work week or longer vacation periods in this country.

[DesertCat]

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It always amuses me when cocky americans talk about "poor" Europe.. What was your debt again? I also heard the dollar is skye high these days...

In Norway the minimum wage is 3 times as high as it is in the US...

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Government can't set a minimum wage, it can only destroy jobs that don't meet it's definition of a minimum economic value.

Otherwise it's nice to live in a place that doesn't deal with mass immigration problems, never spent trillions of dollars defending the freedom of other countries, sat out WW II with a Nazi in charge, etc. Saudi Arabia has a nice economy too, is it because of their government policies, or because they also sit on a huge oil reserves and have their defence paid for by the United States?

And how nice is Norway, anyhoo?

[Goldmund]

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The laws are so restrictive that you can't hire a full time employee without committing to employ them for life.


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That is just utter BS.

[DesertCat]

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This is clearly not true. If you have some sort of evidence of this, please share it.

Fifty years ago, most women worked zero hours a week, and about half of men had union jobs. Now, most people of both sexes work full time jobs, and I have seen no evidence that the vacation time or average hours/per worked have gone down.


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First, here is U.S. census data showing that inflation adjusted income has increased at all income levels pretty much every year for decades.

Second, do your really think that woman did not work at all 50 years ago? Who took care of children, cleaned the home, cooked meals? Primarily, it was woman. Wasn't that work? If woman are working today, it means either that labor saving advances have reduced the home work load enough they can do both, or they are paying someone to take care of their home.

One way of looking at average hours worked is US Dep of Labor stats. Go to their statistics page and ask it to show you data for all private employment. When it presents the results to you, ask it to show from 1964 to 2007. You'll find that average hours worked has declined from 38.5 hours per week in 1964, down to 33.9 hours per week in 2007.

So making more, working less. Game, shot, match!

And don't think politicians are going to necessarily propose exotic new programs during elections (they learned from Hilary's "health plan"). They'll just tell you that things are getting worse, give you a smattering of irrelevant and far from comprehensive statistics to scare you, and say, "elect me, I'll solve these problems".

The truth is things are mostly getting better. The things that are getting worse (our currency, our debt) are all driven by politicians trying to get re-elected by spending your tax monies like crazed teenagers with dad's credit card in a shopping mall.