Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 103 posts

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#21

Post by alextgordon »

csantini wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't bet on that.

Me neather, short term. But in the long run Capitalism will not want humans, we're too expensive. It also really makes no sense to work, I think this will become increasingly more evident. Note: Marx wouldn't agree with me. He would say that the rich will still have the means of production (automation), so the poor will still do stupid jobs to get paid that little to afford the products made by automation. It's basic…

You're describing a depression, though. High unemployment -> less demand -> fewer jobs -> repeat.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#22

Post by tbrownaw »

johnshaft1000 wrote: post #3

Shocker. They really needed a study to determine this?

Yes.

Not everything that's "obvious" is actually correct. There is value in verifying such things.

There is also value in quantifying such things beyond the level of detail available from "but everybody knows...".

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#23

Post by robertnn »

johnkpush wrote: post #6

I worked for a Swedish company. Because of holidays, vacation leave, maternity and paternity leave, and sick days, there were employees of the company that I never saw. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it took quite a while to get used to it.

I'm Swedish, and there are definitely people that are away for long periods of time (usually paternity leave), but was it really that many people that you never met? :-) How long did you work there?

Not trying to be snarky, I just want to point out that it's not like you can take vacation year round (even if you're in Sweden..), even though we certainly have quite a bit of vacation (25 days is the norm) and no problem taking half a year of per parent per child.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#24

Post by bane »

artifaxx wrote: post #4
patio11 wrote: post #2

Japanese workers are offered an average of twenty days off each year and take only twelve, leaving eight unused vacation days lying on the table. No lie, that's a qualified success: it used to be 14 days offered and 8 exercised in Japan, as recently as a few years ago. (The 2006ish timeframe? Read it in a work-related report. [+]) [+] Proving once again that you can almost never underestimate how bad the Japanese wor…

That's just scary. It definitely shows how much culture can change/warp our ideas about existence. Although that few days off probably is a significant factor in heightened Japanese suicide rates.

Mind blowing (but not surprising) is how low Japan (and South Korea) ranks in terms of worker productivity. IIR, if South Koreans worked at a similar productivity as Norwegians, they could take half the week off with no effects at all on GDP. Japan is only slightly better.

In other words, quite a bit of those long work hours are absolutely useless.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#25

Post by aikah »

paulsutter wrote: post #19
hooliu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the alternative is racism.

The study is geographic, and about work culture not race. To your point, a better title might refer to "Asian Countries" and "European Countries" instead of individuals. Europeans living in Japanese companies work similar days/hours as their coworkers, of course.

> The study is geographic, and about work culture not race

It's a social study, not geography. Assuming that Japanese are like that or french people are like that is indeed prejudice, since there is no data to back things up but individual bias, or bias promoted by movies or the pop culture.

I agree with your second point.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#26

Post by hugh4 »

hooliu wrote: post #11
johnshaft1000 wrote: post #3

Shocker. They really needed a study to determine this?

Yes, because the alternative is racism.

I take this as evidence that the word "racism" has completely lost whatever meaning it may have had, and that we should probably make up a new word to mean what "racism" used to mean, if we still think that's a useful concept.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#28

Post by pedrosorio »

bane wrote: post #24
artifaxx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just scary. It definitely shows how much culture can change/warp our ideas about existence. Although that few days off probably is a significant factor in heightened Japanese suicide rates.

Mind blowing (but not surprising) is how low Japan (and South Korea) ranks in terms of worker productivity. IIR, if South Koreans worked at a similar productivity as Norwegians, they could take half the week off with no effects at all on GDP. Japan is only slightly better. In other words, quite a bit of those long work hours are absolutely useless.

Norway is perhaps not the best country for comparison. If South Koreans could get 22% of their GDP and 67% of their exports from the Oil & Gas sector that would help their productivity too.

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/count...

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#29

Post by 31reasons »

csantini wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't bet on that.

Me neather, short term. But in the long run Capitalism will not want humans, we're too expensive. It also really makes no sense to work, I think this will become increasingly more evident. Note: Marx wouldn't agree with me. He would say that the rich will still have the means of production (automation), so the poor will still do stupid jobs to get paid that little to afford the products made by automation. It's basic…

Internet provides you access to unlimited amount of information that basically allows people to create their own automation solutions. Why do you have to depend on rich to provide it ? The whole idea of Rich and Poor is based on Scarcity of goods. When we enter the era of full automation, we will be able to convert Energy into any form of product without human intervention. Energy + AI = Products.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#30

Post by sdrothrock »

artifaxx wrote: post #4
patio11 wrote: post #2

Japanese workers are offered an average of twenty days off each year and take only twelve, leaving eight unused vacation days lying on the table. No lie, that's a qualified success: it used to be 14 days offered and 8 exercised in Japan, as recently as a few years ago. (The 2006ish timeframe? Read it in a work-related report. [+]) [+] Proving once again that you can almost never underestimate how bad the Japanese wor…

That's just scary. It definitely shows how much culture can change/warp our ideas about existence. Although that few days off probably is a significant factor in heightened Japanese suicide rates.

I wonder. Japan also has 16 national holidays in comparison with (for example) the US's 11.
Post reply on HN