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Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

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Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#21

Post by timr »

jacobolus wrote: post #16

“Geoghegan believes Germans understate their work hours, and Americans overstate work hours. Yet both countries are getting roughly the same amount of work done. This means that Germans are actually doing more, while working less.” Is it just me, or does the claim about over/understating work hours run exactly contrary to the subsequent claim? (To be explicit: Germans understate their hours ⇒ they work more hours tha…

The author got the original statement backwards, partly because the original quote was confusing. From the Geohegan interview:

"Look at their productivity rates. They’re like ours. I think we understate our hours and they overstate them, because they take so much time off and sneak off early from work. If the productivity rates being reported are officially the same, and if they’re understating and we’re overstating, they’re probably working more efficiently than we are, and maybe the fact that they’re taking time off has something to do with that."

Sounds like Geohegan himself made a mistake in the second sentence, which could have led to the confusion.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#22

Post by tptacek »

pyre wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may very well be better for everyone's quality of life to pay people less and mandate more leisure; in other words, it may be better if society decides (for most people) how hard they should work. But that's orthogonal to my point. You could mandate 6 weeks vacation in the US, too. But wages would go down as a result. Generally, if you're in our profession and you want more vacation, become a contractor. People ha…

I think the point was that if the US mandated 6 weeks of vacation, and wages went down as a result, so would prices, no?

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#23

Post by bd_at_rivenhill »

lenni wrote: post #7
gaborcselle wrote: post #4

There is no data backing up the claims and stereotypes in this article.

I'm German I find the recent sentiment towards Germany enjoyable but a bit surprising. Not long ago we we're the sick old man of Europe and Ireland was the European tiger. I like life in Germany but it all seems like flavour-of-the-month journalism.

flavour-of-the-month journalism

You have a redundant adjective there.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#24

Post by sqrt17 »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #10

What is the marginal cost to an employer in Germany of an hour of labor? And, in the US? The article did not explicitly state the metric used to quantify "output", but, given other similar studies I've seen, I must presume that profit/employee across the economy is a likely underlying metric. Given such a metric, could labor cost differences explain this "efficiency"? Let us consider a contrived example where, in Ohi…

You're probably right about the labor-saving techniques. In Germany, you get gardeners with automatic leaf blowers (i.e., faster, but more noise), and with a whole slew of bottom-tier jobs (such as supermarket baggers) missing. The car industry is purely based on robots and automation - which is probably the same in the US.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#25

Post by mhd »

lenni wrote: post #7
gaborcselle wrote: post #4

There is no data backing up the claims and stereotypes in this article.

I'm German I find the recent sentiment towards Germany enjoyable but a bit surprising. Not long ago we we're the sick old man of Europe and Ireland was the European tiger. I like life in Germany but it all seems like flavour-of-the-month journalism.

Ireland has the same problems that the US has right now: Not enough industry. Germany actually produces a lot, which made the crisis less severe, even considering that the German finance sector basically did everything wrong they could do wrong. The boom in Ireland was founded on the service industry, with huge tax breaks to finance it. And the US has been moving more and more industrial jobs offshore.

I don't want to over-simplify. The US has a higher population and thus doesn't need to export as much. But actually manufacturing something ain't that bad. Didn't someone complain recently that even Silicon Valley is doing that less and less?

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#26

Post by wheels »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #10

What is the marginal cost to an employer in Germany of an hour of labor? And, in the US? The article did not explicitly state the metric used to quantify "output", but, given other similar studies I've seen, I must presume that profit/employee across the economy is a likely underlying metric. Given such a metric, could labor cost differences explain this "efficiency"? Let us consider a contrived example where, in Ohi…

Wages are in general lower, and on the whole the spectrum is compressed -- so low-paid jobs tend to be a big higher, but a software developer in Berlin makes about half to a third of what they would in Silicon Valley.

Also, the article is a bit off on some of its numbers -- 6 weeks of vacation aren't required by law, 24 days are (i.e. just under 5 weeks), though 6 is a common perk.

Additionally, at least in the software industry, I've commonly seen people reporting fewer hours than they actually work because by law overtime must be compensated by money or vacation, which is often an annoyance for the employer and employee (i.e. you're working late to get something done, by choice, and your boss is annoyed because now they're supposed to give you vacation time for that), so I got in the habit of always just reporting 40 hours.

In general I'd take this article with a grain of salt; it's not that it's mostly wrong, but it's clearly written in fandom, rather than a quest-for-understanding sort of way.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#27

Post by gaius »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #15
gaius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but like I say, it doesn't tell the whole story. Would the average American take a 2% cut in wages for an extra week's vacation a year? The purpose of earning money is to enable you to live the lifestyle of your choice, that's axiomatic. If you can get everything you want for less money, are you more or less wealthy than someone who can't get what they want, for more? Also, productivity is not linear with time…

Would the average American take a 2% cut in wages for an extra week's vacation a year? From the article: "In 2008 it was estimated that three vacation days were left unused for most American workers." Since the average American doesn't use all the vacation he has, the answer is probably no.

Because, as the article mentions, the culture of presenteeism.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#28

Post by gaius »

hugothefrog wrote: post #19

I just returned from Berlin a couple of nights ago, and met an English guy (I'm a New Zealander living in London) who'd worked there for a few years. He is an aerospace engineer working for a very famous English engineering firm in their German office. He was of the opinion that German productivity, at least when compared with other European countries, was a myth. He told exactly the same anecdotes about German indiv…

The problem is that Germans have engineers, and an engineering culture and we don't (anymore). Even Aston Martins aren't made here anymore.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#29

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

According to this table Germany actually has LOWER productivity than the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_2...

Or MUCH lower according to this table http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_ove_pro_ppp-economy-ov...

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#30

Post by hga »

hugothefrog wrote: post #19

I just returned from Berlin a couple of nights ago, and met an English guy (I'm a New Zealander living in London) who'd worked there for a few years. He is an aerospace engineer working for a very famous English engineering firm in their German office. He was of the opinion that German productivity, at least when compared with other European countries, was a myth. He told exactly the same anecdotes about German indiv…

R. V. Jones made a similar observation in Most Secret War (WWII) about collaboration between the operational and R&D branches. The Germans would build to spec without interaction with the requesting organization producing a fine piece of engineering whereas in the U.K. there would tend to be back and forth on the requirements and so on, with the U.K. device being less polished but more flexible and more likely to satisfy needs current and future. And I think often more quickly developed, since the R&D types would say "Well, can you relax this requirement?" and so on.

So this sounds like a long established engineering culture.

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