WOW am I gaining an understanding of this BIG TIME! These people are NEVER at work!!! It´s funny that growing up I clearly recall the sterotype of Americans as being lazy. Popular sterotype now seems to be that all we care about is work... I hear it all the time. That and how we want to rule everyone in the world. Anyway, thought this was interesting.
Working Hard or Hardly Working?
By JENNIFER STERLING
Europeans are getting worked up over working hours. Whereas Americans pride themselves on their high productivity and income, Europeans traditionally place a strong value on their leisure time. But growing global competition is forcing Europe to rethink this philosophy.
European companies are increasing efforts to raise production by expanding the weekly work hours of their employees, leading to frequent walkouts and strikes at companies such as Germany's Volkswagen. Governments are reluctant to make the unpopular move of changing generous labor laws to help their countries stay competitive, and it often is left up to industries and individual companies to work out the issues with their unions.
In many European countries, the full-time workweek falls below 40 hours, while the number of paid vacation days outnumbers those in the U.S. From 1970 to 2002, annual per capita hours fell for most industrialized countries, dropping more than 20% in France. But per capita hours increased by 20% in the U.S.
WORKWEEK AVERAGES
• See the workweek numbers in the table0 below and download the data1.
• Read more information2 on how the figures in the charts and table were calculated.
European workers may find it easier than their American counterparts to get on-the-job training. See advice for advancing your career through training programs, in Go Figure3.
An analysis of the average number of hours worked in the U.S., France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and their economic performances indicates that countries with shorter workweeks tend to have higher productivity levels per worker, but lower productivity for the country as a whole. Also, adjusting the use of labor by cutting down hours, extending paid time off and changing the retirement age hasn't helped reduce joblessness in Europe. What's gained in quality of life from generous free time often is offset by lower income and higher unemployment.
"The low labor utilization rates that we see in Europe are not mainly due so much to a preference for leisure but reflect policies that essentially condone paid leisure, policies which effectively made it cheaper and more attractive for people not to work than to work. This can no longer be afforded and needs to be reversed," said Michael Deppler, director of the International Monetary Fund's European department and mission chief to the euro area.
Here's a look at the numbers that illustrate the divide between the European and American workweeks – and the pressures felt in France, Germany and the U.K. to narrow the gap.
Quality of Life: Time Is Money
To Europeans, a generous amount of vacation and holiday time ranks up there with the droits de l'homme. Nodding to this sacrosanct ideology, the European Union Directive grants Europeans a minimum four-week stretch of paid leave. And many European countries exceed that minimum in their national legislation and collective agreements.
France, for example, enjoys a statutory minimum of 25 paid vacation days. Add in holidays, and the total can push the number above six weeks. In the U.S., there is no statutory minimum for vacation days or holidays. Paid time off is a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee, and on average is significantly lower than in Europe.
On the flipside, the French pay for their plentiful time off in lower annual income. "The French have 30% less income than the Americans, but correspondingly more time free for spending with their families or on holiday travel," said Paul Swaim, an economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He adds that American workers may be paying a significant price in diminished life quality due to the number of long hours logged in certain occupations and the "24/7 economy."
Productivity: Can Fewer Work Hours Equal Higher GDP?
European countries often are chastised for low economic growth and productivity compared with the U.S. The American economy grew 3.1% in 2003, compared with 0.5% growth in France.
The European Central Bank showed that annual productivity growth in the euro zone has slowed since the mid-1980s, dropping to 0.9% between 1996 and 2003, from 1.9% in the 1980s. At the same time, the productivity gap grew between the euro zone and the U.S. However, productivity levels per hour in France, Germany and the U.K. are nearly equal to those in the U.S. In comparing 2002 GDP-per-hour levels in the four countries with the U.S. fixed at a base of 100, France tops the list at 103, Germany comes in at 101 and the U.K. bottoms out at 79.
Some economists say because French workers put in overall less time, they perform better than workers in other countries. The problem thus is not lack of productivity, but the amount of hours worked.
In August, the International Monetary Fund reprimanded the European Union, saying more focus needs to be put on the use of labor to maintain Europe's competitiveness in a globalized world.
Michael Deppler, director of the IMF's European department and mission chief to the euro area, said: "Productivity is not Europe's problem. The productivity levels per hour in Europe are basically on a par with those of the United States, and there is no lag there. The real lag is in terms of use of labor, and that's where the catch-up needs to be."
The U.S.: Mind Your Own Business
The U.S. workweek is virtually unregulated compared with EU countries. There generally are no federal limits to the amount of hours worked and there is no statutory minimum of paid holidays or time off. Broad guidelines are provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates overtime pay for work beyond 40 hours a week at a minimum of time and a half of regular pay.
Compared with Europe, unions in the U.S. play a much smaller role in the work force. In 2003, only 13% of wage and salary workers were union members, compared with an OECD country average of 34%. It's mostly up to employers to determine work schedules. Annual hours per worker in the U.S. stood at 1,792, compared with 1,431 in France.
Unlike their European counterparts, the U.S. doesn't oblige employers to pay workers for holidays and vacations. A 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found 21% of all workers in the private sector didn't have paid holidays or vacation.
In August, the government introduced the FairPay initiative that dictates that workers earning less than $23,660 a year, or $455 a week, are guaranteed overtime protection. The government says this initiative will strengthen the overtime rights of 6.7 million workers, including 1.3 million low-wage workers. The rules also change the definition of some workers' titles, meaning that chefs, athletic trainers and embalmers, for example, now are exempt from overtime.
France: Will the 35-Hour Workweek Survive?
In 1998, France cut the workweek to 35 from 39 hours for most workers. Despite the reduction, the same weekly wages were maintained at the insistence of unions, which are a powerful force in the labor market. France's direct collective-bargaining coverage stands at 90%, compared with 36% in the U.K. In effect, the goal behind the legislation was to create jobs. But instead of lowering unemployment, the jobless rate actually increased, from a seasonally adjusted 9.1% in 2000 -- when the law went into effect for most employees -- to 9.4% in July 2004.
Concerns about lower economic growth also emerged, and the law continues to cause sharp divides between workers, unions and policy makers. Many workers are dissatisfied with the situation as higher labor costs have led employers to freeze wages. In many cases these workers are compensated for overtime with extra vacation days instead of more pay. Amid public outcry and strikes, the government is now trying to add flexibility to the law.
In July, French President Jacques Chirac said he favored reforming the workweek to make it easier for workers wanting to earn more money to work longer hours. The current law requires employers to pay up to 50% more for extra hours. Meanwhile, workers at a Robert Bosch plant in France voted to work an additional hour each week for no extra pay after the German tool and car-parts maker threatened layoffs and the outsourcing of a production line to the Czech Republic.
Germany: Unions Strike Out, Employers Fight Back
Nowhere does the clash between generous labor laws, driven by powerful unions, and the need to stay competitive appear more evident than in Germany. Workers took to the streets on a weekly basis this past summer, protesting moves by the government to push through stringent labor reforms to strengthen the economy after a decade-long slump. Germany's two main parties have been punished by the general labor discontent in regional elections, which saw far-right groups and ex-communists gain votes instead.
Big companies, meanwhile, have forced employees to take concessions in the form of longer hours or wage freezes under the threat of moving jobs abroad to cut high labor costs. Labor costs are roughly $33 an hour in the manufacturing sector, compared with $22 in the U.S. In June, engineering giant Siemens reached a landmark agreement with unions to extend work hours at its German mobile-phone facilities to 40 hours a week, instead of the 35 typical for much of the industry, to keep jobs from moving to lower-wage Hungary.
Germany has a legally set work limit of 48 hours a week, but 68% of workers are covered by sectoral agreements that mandate shorter weeks. In the auto manufacturing sector, for example, weekly work hours equaled 36.1 hours in 2003.
Union coverage declined by over one-quarter between 1980 to 2000 to a current level of 25%. In addition, unions are increasingly losing fights with companies, signaling a change in the power dynamic between German employers and workers. The pioneer of the 35-hour week in western Germany, the German Metalworkers' Union, last year failed to extend the statute to eastern Germany in the steel industry. Even after four weeks of strikes, the existing 38-hour week was upheld, marking the union's first defeat in a major dispute since the 1950s.
In November, the Finance Ministry announced plans to scrap a public holiday, as the country struggles to meet EU budget rules in 2005. Finance Minister Hans Eichel said the country's public finances are in a "dramatically difficult" state and Germany "needs to work more." But the government dropped its plan after it met strong opposition, with some labeling the move unpatriotic. The idea was to change the Oct. 3 Reunification Day, which is currently a public holiday, to the first Sunday in October. The government had hoped one extra working day would boost economic growth by 0.1 percentage point.
The U.K.: Longer Hours at a Price
The U.K. braved the recent global economic slowdown better than most of its European peers. Unemployment stood at 4.7% in May 2004, compared with a European Union average of 8.1% and 5.6% in the U.S. But the economic performance came at a price for British workers. Annual hours per worker in the U.K. stood at 1,673, about 100 hours above the EU average.
The country is the only EU member where weekly working hours have increased over the last decade. In an April 2003 U.K. government study, 16% of U.K. workers said they work more than 48 hours a week.
Longer hours may be beneficial if they translate into higher pay and better living standards. But an OECD analysis showed longer hours are also associated with greater perceived conflict between job and family responsibilities, as are working hours that are unpredictable and work schedules that require being on the job outside of normal working hours [e.g. nights or weekends].
The U.K. has some of the least strict employment protection laws among OECD countries, which makes it easier for less-skilled job seekers to find employment but also results in a lower level of overall job security.
Agree - I worked in Europe for many years... You would be amazed at how much emphasis they put on planning vacations, etc... Just so you can understand how some of those conversations went with friends in France (well, working friends anyways) - I'll set the stage.
Was in Normandy with a friend Karen - she is a partner at Deloitte & Touche - French citizen. This is about 6 months after the Concorde crashed at their airport - and yes, we are friends, but I had to get my serious French jab in:
Karen - "Do you know the reason why Americans do not take weeks of vacation?"
GB - "Do tell"
Karen - "It is because all you think about is work and do not know how to manage your own time"
GB - "I disagree - I don't take 2 or 3 week vacations because when I go back to my office - my name may not be on the door"
Karen - "That is my point - you don't know how to manage your time"
GB - "Listen - don't be pissed at me because it took you a couple dozen years to finally kill a few Germans"
That Concorde flight was loaded with German's when it went down... [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img] Yes, that did piss her off... [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img]
I also managed some German citizens where I was warned that I cannot work them on weekends - against their labor laws... In addition - you cannot operate heavy machinery on weekends in Germany...
Insane rules - and there is a reason why my firm does so well internationally - there is a reason why European firms will have my people fly half way around the world to be on their projects and drive their deadlines and milestones...
... there is a reason why European firms will have my people fly half way around the world to be on their projects and drive their deadlines and milestones...
WELL WELL SAID! Example: The Dutch just spent $8,000 in airfare alone to have me on-site for 9 days.... because no one else wanted to work longer hours in December. Crazy. Same $$ gets spent the 1st week in Jan when I come back.
Personally, I would rather fly coach and capture all the Business Class cash myself working more billable hours.
1.) Business Class is a beautiful thing... I am 6'4 - and could sleep the entire way... And just in case you get any crazy ideas on those packed flights - and if you happen to be walking back to coach passing empty business class seats - do not attempt to sit in one... They load the plane with the proper amount of meals - when those meals don't match - then they get out who should be where and who they upgraded - they'll find you eventually just because their meals don't match.
2.) Secondly - rows 81 thru 89 are the best - those numbers on KLM and Northwest mean you are upstairs - 100% silence...
3.) You can get upgraded to business class for nothing. And don't worry about humiliation - simply walk up to the counter and say that you fly this every other weekend - you have work to do - you are primier - and that you were wondering if they had any room at all in first class - I'll even skip the food. I would say 6 times out of ten - this worked for a friend that I traveled with.
I launched my firm in Rotterdam almost 8 years ago... So know that country very well... We also have projects in Amsterdam, Houda, Delft and Utrecht - let me know if you need to know where the proper gentleman clubs are that people do not talk about [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img] Or, the cities that have cool out of the way bars that are older than the US and have AWESOME food...
Such tight legal controls over the work week are simply inane. Yes, I would like more vacation, but I always like to have a job! The Western Europeans are only going to get more pressured by Eastern Europe and Asia, and may all end up on permanent vacation if they don't get their act together and work a few more hours a week.
1.) Business Class is a beautiful thing... I am 6'4 - and could sleep the entire way... And just in case you get any crazy ideas on those packed flights - and if you happen to be walking back to coach passing empty business class seats - do not attempt to sit in one... They load the plane with the proper amount of meals - when those meals don't match - then they get out who should be where and who they upgraded - they'll find you eventually just because their meals don't match.
Yeah, but if you are sleeping, usually they don't disturb you to give you your meal, so either stay in coach until you have your meal, then move to sleep, or arrange for your neighbor to receive your coach meal, act like you are sleeping when the business meal is delivered, then go get your coach meal
I have the toughest time trying to get work done in the UK. THey are very anal on delivery times, personel needed, refuse to work past 5, or before 8. Most of the work we do is done during a maintainence window. This is so the end user, the customer don't notice a change or problem.
With all the layers of management I deal with, I usually end up having one of our locals or myself do installs, when they forget to close a path to the servers. They have gone so far as shut the routers off at night as security. Great idea, but that is how I fix things, so it keeps them off the air longer.
Added to it is the VAT that we are taxed on products being delivered. 17%
In regards to the UK - we actually have a remote development team working the US clock on one client to provide them with almost 24 coverage with our people over there... And you are right - in the UK - which is probably the closest in work ethic to the US - still has the attitude "whatever isn't done today - can probably get done tomorrow".
Reminds me - we launched a project in Barcelona about 4 years ago... Within the first week - I was pulled aside by the client and scolded that I was coming in too early - and it was offending his staff... :shocked:
Needless to say - I never ever did get used to rolling in at 8:30 - and then going for a four course lunch each and every day with my client team members... That was very very hard for me to do - especially when you knew you were behind schedule...
Get off work - want to grab a quick meal and keep working in the hotel - yet restaurants don't open until 9pm...! HELLO...
Nice country - but working there is a completely different story... And I am convinced that if we bombed just one highway in France - the entire country would shut down... And they all wonder over there why they are irrelevant in the world...
Needless to say - I never ever did get used to rolling in at 8:30 - and then going for a four course lunch each and every day with my client team members... That was very very hard for me to do - especially when you knew you were behind schedule...
Get off work - want to grab a quick meal and keep working in the hotel - yet restaurants don't open until 9pm...! HELLO...
Damn...EXACTLY how it was when I was in London this past Feb. We stayed in the financial district and got a kick out of the people there. At lunch, places were packed and people in suits and work attire were downing bottles of wine and large meals. We were in vacation so we took our time eating but these local people got there before us and were there when we left. How long is there lunch hour?? [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img]
At 5pm, the flood gates opened. Streets were so packed with people running to the subway or to the bars. All stores and business's were closed at 5pm sharp. Weekends..forget about it. It was like a ghost town there.
My 2 hour lunches were in Spain - in the UK it wasn't as bad... Now if we could just get the Brits to brush their teeth... [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img]
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