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

forbes.com

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

#81

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Capitalism will not want humans, we're too expensive.

I'm worried that, on current history, this is more likely to be ""solved"" by genocide than leisure.

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

#82

Post by rtpg »

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…

Another peculiar aspect is that Japan is the country with the most bank holidays in the world, so if you're in the lucky half of the population that has the "salaryman" qualification (mon-fri) then you get almost a week in January , almost a week in May,and a dozen or so guaranteed 3 day weekends (including this one)

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

#83

Post by anon4 »

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.

Yeah but this is easy to manage and predict. You tell everyone to do X work, where X is somewhere in the bottom quartile of productivity. If someone does less, you tell them to pick it up - it's pretty likely they're slacking off too much as opposed to being unable to perform. But you don't want people to do more, because then you start having different employees. Some would get jealous at others' higher productivity and more free time and you'll have to manage people differently and give different salaries and it will all be MADNESS. It's easiest for management if everyone is the same somewhat inefficient cog in the machine.

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

#84

Post by rtpg »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #44
ronnier wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my company in Japan, we had 20 public holidays though. That's a lot more than we get in the US. But those public holidays come at a cost -- trying to do any sort of activity during Golden Week is next to impossible because of overcrowding.

That just sounds outright stressful. That sounds like Black Friday shopping in the USA, something I avoid like the plague every year.

It's not nearly as bad as Black Friday (except the roads and Shinkansen in really popular routes). Hotels are full but hotels are full other times of the year too. The logistics end up working out

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

#85

Post by anon4 »

oblio wrote: post #77
prodmerc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're about as European as the Albanians lol

The Albanians are one of the oldest population groups in Europe. They are descended from Paleo-Balkanic peoples.

If uncle Hitler has taught me anything, it's that people who aren't blond-eyed blue-haired Aryans are dirty non-European foreigners! /s

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

#86

Post by baby »

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.

I have a friend working in Japan who tells me his coworkers spend a lot of time just sleeping at work. It doesn't seem to be frowned upon. Apparently they are extremely inefficient, doing long hours, sleeping little and suffering from it during the day at work.

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

#87

Post by lightcatcher »

CardenB wrote: post #20
menacingly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait, (correctly) anticipating the result of a study is racism?

Yes because you don't have evidence to support your theory. You're generalizing with insufficient data.

If you can generalize on similar problems and be correct more often than random chance, then you have a useful model regardless of the data backing that model.

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

#88

Post by CyberDildonics »

dang wrote: post #56
CyberDildonics wrote: post #17

Was this study done by No Shit University?

You've been posting unsubstantive and—worse—uncivil comments to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

First off that isn't really true.

Second, do you ban them or do you threaten people with your tiny amount of sandbox internet power, because that's what this looks like.

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

#89

Post by prodmerc »

oblio wrote: post #77
prodmerc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're about as European as the Albanians lol

The Albanians are one of the oldest population groups in Europe. They are descended from Paleo-Balkanic peoples.

Well, OK, I just recently learned they're an mostly Islamic country who love their gun culture.

An odd combination for any "European" country, yet they're technically in Southern Europe.

Nothing against it, really, but they don't fit in with the neighbors, for sure...

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

#90

Post by oblio »

prodmerc wrote: post #89
oblio wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Albanians are one of the oldest population groups in Europe. They are descended from Paleo-Balkanic peoples.

Well, OK, I just recently learned they're an mostly Islamic country who love their gun culture. An odd combination for any "European" country, yet they're technically in Southern Europe. Nothing against it, really, but they don't fit in with the neighbors, for sure...

Finns and Czechs also love their guns. And Albanians used to be Christians until they were converted under Ottoman rule.

If you take any given coordinates available in Europe, you're bound to find oddballs.

Oh, and regarding Islam, there's Wahhabism and there's the Ottoman-style Sunni Islam (I don't know the historic name for it). The two have little in common. The Muslims in Europe are 99% results of Ottoman influence. So European Muslims, especially in the Balkans, are quite moderate.

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