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Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

bloomberg.com

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Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#281

Post by GunlogAlm »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #223
patrickk wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. This varies dramatically within Europe. From personal experience, customer service is decent, polite and timely in the UK and Ireland, and generally awful in Germany. It's difficult to generalise across a continent with 700mil+ people (500+ mil in the EU), with enormous cultural variations and expectations of good service (much greater variations than in t…

There is a great variation in the United States. A country of 300 million people, where each state has a unique culture and identity. For some reason, "American" is often generalized to be a caricature that I, having lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, have never encountered.

You'll find the same level of cultural variation in almost any country. It's nowhere near the same level of variation you find between countries of Europe.

For example: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have unique cultural differences; distinct identities. The same goes for counties within England, e.g. Cornwall or Devon versus, say, Yorkshire.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#282

Post by snovv_crash »

wil421 wrote: post #214
creshal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have more (paid) vacation and more public holidays and sick leave is both paid for and not counted towards the vacation budget, and more maternity/paternity leave, and some countries have extra leave for things like family funerals. It's not hard to "work less" like that.

I have all this things in the US. Sick leave is not counted in my vacation. Maternity leave is much longer than paternity. And is paid for in full at my company for a time. FMLA allows 12 weeks total but it can be unpaid. The main difference I've seen with the Europeans I work with is, they take big chunks off at a time in summer. They pay more taxes but have more time off. Most likely don't get full pay for Maternit…

I haven't seen any US companies offering 25 days of paid vacation a year, plus unlimited sick leave (doctors note required for more than 3 consecutive days), plus extra days off for personal emergencies eg children sick, death in family.

All the money in SV could never make me go there if I never have time to spend it.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#283

Post by salmon30salmon »

snovv_crash wrote: post #265
salmon30salmon wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I walk into a government building in my state, I will pick up a pamphlet which has notices in English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Arabic. I can walk down a street and hear each of those languages being spoken. Are you really going to tell me that the Vietnamese experience in the United States is basically the same as the English experience? If so, please come visit on of the top 30 cities in the United State…

Just in Switzerland (which has only 8 million people) there are 4 official languages. Only 30k people speak Romansh, so let's ignore that one. But if you go to the German part, most people don't even understand French. Likewise, if you go to the French part, most people don't understand German. The Italian part is quite a bit smaller than rest of Switzerland, and most people there choose to learn French as a second l…

Right, which is why I am _not_ saying that the EU is in any way homogeneous. What I am saying is that _neither_ the EU or the US are homogeneous. And the same treatment that is applied to the EU when claiming that a certain culture describes "Europe" needs to be applied to the US.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#284

Post by cloverich »

antisthenes wrote: post #277
TDL wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not common knowledge to me, especially since I don't live in California. You have asserted certain claims and offer no evidence. "Common knowledge" isn't evidence.

> "Common knowledge" isn't evidence. But it is. The data for public salaries generally has very good availability in the Information age. If you're trying to participate in a discussion in an informed way, you should at least conduct the minimum due diligence to do so.

Common knowledge is by definition not evidence.

> The data for public salaries generally has very good availability in the Information age.

The salaries don't seem particularly high, and in some cases (construction workers and bus drivers, top quarter) seem particularly low. Of course a lot more goes into job satisfaction than Salary but I agree, this is not common knowledge.

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/construction-worke...

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/bus-driver/salary

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#285

Post by joesmo »

misiti3780 wrote: post #245
untog wrote: post #9

I've worked in both Europe and the US, and in my opinion, US workers are far worse off for it. You earn more money in the US, you can advance faster, but you have next-to-no vacation time (and even when you do, you're still often expected to be reachable by e-mail), maternity/paternity leave is pitiful, and you have to pay large health insurance premiums, amongst other things. I know that isn't the case for everyone,…

Sorry for this small rant .... I dont understand why everyone is so caught up with answering emails on vacation. Yes - it's not ideal, but as long as your not expected to be on your phone all day, and in my experience, you are not unless you own your own business, are a doctor, etc. then what is the big deal? 5/10 minutes of email's in the morning means Europeans have a better work/life balance ? If you work for a sm…

I work for a small company (< 20 people) and I'm an integral part of the team, yet I take 3+ week vacations with no problem. If my boss ever said the above to me, my only answer would be "Fuck you," before I left.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#286

Post by netule »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #236
jypepin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that. You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle. Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see: - US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, perso…

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc. When you call customer support in the US, you get someone in India who barely speaks English. If you call customer support in the Netherlands you get a Dutch person because no one outside the Netherlands speaks Dutch. Also, due to better consumer protection laws the actual results are often way better to…

Honestly, most times, the Indian representative does just fine. In all my time here, I can count on one hand the times that a customer service rep was ineffective. Larger companies especially (Amazon, WalMart, etc.) will bend over backwards to please the customer. My experiences in NL dealing with customer service has been bad on average.

Disclaimer: lived in the Netherlands for 20 years, living in the US for 12 years now.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#287

Post by lispm »

jnmandal wrote: post #90

One crazy takeaway from this: Greeks work longer hours than Germans

Factory workers at Porsche are unionized. They work less than 40 hours per week, around 35 per week , still Porsche is one of the most profitable companies in the automotive business with a well-educated workforce.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-11/porsche-pr...

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#288

Post by erikbye »

I’m from Norway. It has always been something of a given, from our perspective, that Americans work on average more hours per week than we do. It’s something you hear all the time. Also, that in the U.S. it’s more common to relocate for a job, and, accept longer commutes.

I have a full-time position, and work a maximum of 37.5 hours every week.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#289

Post by softawre »

wmccullough wrote: post #118
webaholic wrote: post #3

How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state. Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...

I'm about to turn 31, and I make a decent salary as a Senior Software Engineer. I'm deeply considering going to live on a few acres and go full subsistence to avoid this rat race. Software isn't fun anymore, our generation probably won't retire. The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially. I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep do…

I am 32, similar position as you (Lead SE).

Just save 50% of your money, retire cheaply at 45 or 50. It's not that hard to do with 100k+ salaries.

Once you get in the mind-set, the job becomes more fun. You know there's an end to it, and you have enough cash to walk at any time.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#290

Post by ido »

yodsanklai wrote: post #232
jypepin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that. You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle. Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see: - US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, perso…

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. I remember a sign at a Mac Donald's in New York that said something like "if the waiter doesn't smile, you get a free burger". In Europe you may not get the forced smile, but it doesn't mean the service is worse. Overall, I'd say the service is slightly better in the US, but you can see it's totally fake and I find it a little bit disturbing.

Having to wait a much longer time till waiters acknowledge you in the German-speaking countries is certainly a bigger part of it than the smiling or lack there of.
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