French workers fight for the right to be lazy

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
That hardly qualifies as debilitating

yes, consuming 50 hours of your week is not debilitating at all.

Well, that is true if you live to work, rather than work to live, as was said eariler, I suppose. But then, really, who cares about the drones anyways? Concern should only be given to those people who can actually feel life.

[DinoDoc]

Can someone explain to me why you all are defending a policy that hasn't had the effect it was sold as providing and has in fact hindered the very thing it was supposed to have helped?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Exactly, but one of the reasons they build factories in China is because of the cheap labor. How can you possibly argue otherwise.

That's not why they build in China as opposed to Africa.

Where have I said jobs aren't going to China? In fact, that's what I did say, earlier. Jobs moving to a place != low unemployment.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
yes, consuming 50 hours of your week is not debilitating at all.

Well, that is true if you live to work, rather than work to live, as was said eariler, I suppose. But then, really, who cares about the drones anyways? Concern should only be given to those people who can actually feel life.

How is it particularly different from 35? Why is 40 or 50 specifically bad?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, even if you work 20 hours a week, you are still working to live. It's silly to you aren't, unless you are welfare check collecting do-nothing.

[Nacht]

I work 15 hours a week . I pay all my bills and dont take any money from the government'. Yes I'm not rich... I don't care, I enjoy thoroughly every last hour of free time i have. And I don't use all the hours I got by working below the magic number of 40 hours by watching TV Imran

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kidicious


As I remember Oerdin makes quite a bit of money not working, and I bet DanS does too.

I'm unemployed but I imagine I still make more then you.

Besides I shall be employed again soon. I've got two interviews coming up next week both of which are well paying.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Locutus
Yet per capita we are among the wealthiest countries in the world and are also at or near the top of the ranking in terms of welfare, happiness and life expentency. We must be doing something right

35 hrs a week

30 hrs a week

Alexander's Horse linked to recent PPP figures and hours worked per worker per year. The Dutch worked 40% less then Americans and made a PPP $26k while Americans worked worked more but made a PPP $36k. I think on an income gained per hour of work bases the Dutch are ahead of us though the Americans still make significantly more.

The big losers were the Australians who worked more hours then anyone else in the 1st world but made some of the lowest incomes (something like PPP$20k).

[Lawrence of Arabia]

trying to figure out 3rd world unemployment rates is useless - everyone is underemployed, and theres no way china has only 10% unemployment.

[el freako]

I have the exact figures Oerdin (no surprise there eh?)

Productivty in OECD members, measured by GDP per hour worked (2002 @ PPPs) and expressed as a % of USA:

1st, Norway 132%
2nd, Luxembourg 125%
3rd, France 120%
4th Belgium 114%
5th, Netherlands 109%
6th, Ireland 106%
7th, Austria 102%
8th, Germany 102%
9th, United States 100%
10th, Denmark 98%
11th, Italy 96%
12th, Finland 92%
13th, Switzerland 91%
14th, United Kingdom 90%
15th, Sweden 89%
16th, Australia 83%
17th, Canada 83%
18th, Spain 77%
19th, Japan 75%
20th, Iceland 72%
21st, New Zealand 65%
22nd, Greece 65%
23rd, Portugal 54%
24th, Hungary 52%
25th, Czech Republic 42%
26th, Mexico 39%
27th, Slovakia 39%
28th, Poland 38%
29th, South Korea 31%
30th, Turkey 26%

The full series is here

[DanS]

And why do I think that DanS won't agree with the 35 hour workweek either?

I'm not averse to a 35 hour work week in principle. In the US, we've made much larger percentage reductions in the past, after all. We moved slowly from a 6-day/12 hour daily work week business custom to a 5-day/8 hour daily work week business custom (a 45% reduction). FYI, there are still some industries that adhere to a 6-day work week.

However, for the last couple of decades, the decrease has taken a pause in the US, while it has continued outside the anglophone area. I question the wisdom of swimming against the tide created by the US and the emerging economies. To mix my metaphors, it's clear that no country is an island with regard to competition. In addition, the French get much more vacation than Americans, so it's not merely a question of the number of hours in a work week.

I also question the wisdom of mandating the change from the government. The government is large enough in France that if it instituted a 35-hour workweek for government employees, eventually that practice likely would filter through to industry, as the business climate permitted.

Lastly, it doesn't seem to make sense to lower the amount of time that the French work, considering that fewer workers will be supporting more retirees as the years go by. To get a good sense of what's going on, it probably would make more sense to look at this as the total number of hours worked per capita per year, which would factor in the impact of retirement and vacations.

[RGBVideo]

Uhh.... folks.... nothing stops people from taking 35 hours per week jobs here in the States, or from demanding more vacation days. And some places do offer that. The French require that BY LAW. How can that be fair? What about people who need lots of money, and want to work as many hours a week as they can (They do exist, people who have run up too much credit card debt and need to reverse themselves)?

Finally, someone else who got it... nothing wrong with short work-weeks if you can live with the money you got from the hours, but why not allow some people to work longer if they truly want to?

[:) Smiley]

Wow, the US is surprisingly high up on that list.

[RGBVideo]

Yet per capita we are among the wealthiest countries in the world and are also at or near the top of the ranking in terms of welfare, happiness and life expentency. We must be doing something right

Shell.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker




I spend more than 35 hours a week in school.

That's not 35 hours working, is it? Factor in time spent staring thunderstruck at the budding bodies of your female colleagues, and helpless insecurity about whether your genitals are ever going to come up to scratch, and you're looking at about 6 hours of actual work.