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

Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

openforum.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 131 posts

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#81

Post by loewenskind »

sasvari wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that Manhattan and San Francisco are representative of the housing markets of the entire US? The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1]. Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source? [1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectivel…

These numbers don't take the lifetime of the houses into account. Without having actual data I would say German houses have a higher lifetime than US counterparts. In Europe, and especially in Germany, houses are usually built not for a decade, but for multiple decades (more robust houses, better insulation etc.). I am not sure if this also applies to most American houses. Do the numbers then still reflect the actual…

The difference in house quality also has other effects. In the US the insulation is poor enough that you probably have to have either AC or heating on year round. In our house we don't even have AC (never missed it) and the temperature has to remain below 0C for a few days before we have to turn the heater on (or we can just invite a bunch of friends over).

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#82

Post by flannell »

As a Brit who used to work in New York, for an investment company, I have a different view. While I agree my US fellow workers are very sociable during the day, they do tend to run off 5pm sharp! There's no "go for beers after work" environment. I spoke to them candidly about this and they said their real friends are the ones they grew up with and tend to hang out with them. I also had a colleague at HSBC and another at JPM who also expressed the same view, but added that's why brits do well over in the states because they are used to working longer hours and this appears favourable to the bosses.

Anyway, not trolling, just thought relevant.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#83

Post by JustAGeek »

I'm a bit late to the party but whatever, just wanted to let you know that us Germans don't have 6 weeks federally mandated vacations, it's 24 days: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesurlaubsgesetz#Gesetzliche...

That's the minimum, most people I know have 28-30 days. On top of that you can get up to 5 days of paid educational leave.

The article as a whole is quite superficial, imho.

Not sure if those working in big companies like Deutsche Telekom or Daimler would agree to the claim that Germans don't have many meetings, for example... ;)

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#84

Post by fauigerzigerk »

I wonder why the term productivity is even used in this article. The debate about how much vacation time people should get has very little to do with productivity in my view. Productivity is output per hour worked, no matter how many hours are actually spent working.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#85

Post by yardie »

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…

I guess you could look at it both ways. When building something you are only as strong as your weakest link. Closest analogy would be the "for want of a nail" in the Art of War.

And when you think of quality "German engineering" tends to get a stamp of approval. It implies that no detail was overlooked or under resourced. It probably doesn't mean much when buying a cheap toy, but if you are spending 40-80k on a car it is reassuring.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#86

Post by danielh »

JustAGeek wrote: post #83

I'm a bit late to the party but whatever, just wanted to let you know that us Germans don't have 6 weeks federally mandated vacations, it's 24 days: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesurlaubsgesetz#Gesetzliche... That's the minimum, most people I know have 28-30 days. On top of that you can get up to 5 days of paid educational leave. The article as a whole is quite superficial, imho. Not sure if those working in big…

Actually, it's only 24 days if you have six work days in a week. For a 5-day-week, it's 20 days per year minimum.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#87

Post by JustAGeek »

danielh wrote: post #86
JustAGeek wrote: post #83

I'm a bit late to the party but whatever, just wanted to let you know that us Germans don't have 6 weeks federally mandated vacations, it's 24 days: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesurlaubsgesetz#Gesetzliche... That's the minimum, most people I know have 28-30 days. On top of that you can get up to 5 days of paid educational leave. The article as a whole is quite superficial, imho. Not sure if those working in big…

Actually, it's only 24 days if you have six work days in a week. For a 5-day-week, it's 20 days per year minimum.

Ah, didn't know that, thanks. In fact, I haven't even known the 24 days before I looked it up in Wikipedia... :D

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#88

Post by danielh »

raphman wrote: post #14

The article has some facts not completely correct: "The government provides citizens with free healthcare, free university education, and childcare." Healthcare plans are mandatory for most but not paid by the government. University education at public universities costs between 0 and 500 EUR per semester, childcare is subsidized but not completely free.

You are right. Although your healtcare is paid by the employment agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), if you are unemployed.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#89

Post by gaius »

archangel_one wrote: post #49
yummyfajitas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not so sure the answer is automatically no - I think a lot of workers will save a few vacation days as a buffer in case they need them for something unexpected. Also, the figure is probably skewed by companies that won't let the leave count go negative - in those cases it probably won't balance out to zero unless the employee makes a specific effort to.

Yeah, the idea of a fixed number of sick days is baffling to me as a European. It's like you're penalized for not being sick, by getting less time off...

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#90

Post by charlesju »

fforw wrote: post #55
charlesju wrote: post #54

My counter argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... USA GDP - 14.2 T Germany GDP - 3.3 T

Of course you also have 3.5 times the population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... difference only 26%... guess you should move to Qatar or Luxembourg though -- but when you're not rich from oil or moving large sums of bank money around, that high GDP is not actually helping, is it? And then there is stuff like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index .

Yeah that it's nice that Germany might be more efficient, but we're still > 4 times their size. When we're talking about country "power" no one cares about efficiency.

As for Quality of Life, that's fine, but I love America and I love our lifestyle, so perhaps that's more of a personal choice than an aggregated one.

Post reply on HN