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Average annual hours worked per country

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Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#91

Post by getoj »

xevb3k wrote: post #68
betadreamer wrote: post #2

Keep in mind that this is showing the "reported" hours, which can be misleading. For example it shows that people in US works more than Japan but I know for a fact that people in Japan works A LOT more. However, since it is a cultural thing and they expect you to work long hours, no one reports overtime. I even heard that you can get fired if you report it.

If you know it for a fact, could you supply some data that would help back this up? I’m not saying they don’t, but legally Japanese workers have more paid time off than Americans [1]. Japan also has a larger number of public holidays, which while not legally enforced, are generally taken. I’d be curious to see data about when people actually arrive at and leave work, and how many holidays are taken. [1] 10+ days vers…

This question is also answered by the MHLW statistics [1].

On page 2, the line graph at the top represents the percentage of available paid leave days taken on average, with the absolute numbers below. So, the average worker in Heisei 25 (2013) had 18.5 days of leave, of which he took 9.0, or 48.8%.

(Not including public holidays.)

[1] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-11201000-Roudoukiju... (in Japanese)

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#92

Post by Reactionary_ »

roel_v wrote: post #44
germinalphrase wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you attribute this higher rate of part time work to a strong social welfare system in the Netherlands or to some other factor?

Low labor participation in women. The part timers are overwhelmingly women, in a 'typical' household, the man works full time and the woman 2 or 3 days (especially once there are children, but even before that). This effect is even more pronounced in higher educated women, who can afford this arrangement. There are many research papers about this topic but there is no clear reason. The most common conclusion is that…

Considering millions of years of evolution shaped female brains to be the primary caregivers, isn't this a common sense approach and explanation for the behavior?

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#93

Post by greenbean1234 »

mxuribe wrote: post #9

Knowing a few colleagues who work in some of the listed countries, I'd say this chart is about right. /* As he groans slightly from his years working hard in the U.S., and settling back in his comfortable armchair quarterback chair. */

Just sit back in your armchair and take some well deserved rest

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#94

Post by dwightgunning »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #81
stevesimmons wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some "anecdata" from my 6 years working in the Netherlands: * 4 day weeks are very common: I worked for a Dutch Bank for 3 years. Virtually all the Dutch "full time" staff worked 4 day weeks. The deal was work 10% less (36 instead of 40 hours), extend the working day a notional one hour on Monday to Thursday, and take every Friday off. Not bad for a 10% reduction in salary. And since everyone does it - even…

What time do cafes usually close in Amsterdam? Because it seems that the standard in Australia and NZ is for cafes to open early and close early, at around 3pm or 4pm.

(Australian living in Amsterdam)

Anecdotally, most cafes close at 5pm here. When I was in Melbourne earlier this year I found the 3/4pm close times a little inconvenient based on what I’m used to here.

On the flip side, very few places are open for coffee or breakfast out before 8am.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#95

Post by adventured »

kevingadd wrote: post #35
ashray5 wrote: post #31

The good news: number of working hours decreased from 2000 to 2017 for pretty much all the countries in this report. A sign of overall development in my opinion.

Or job market regression. Combined with wage stagnation in the US over the past few decades, a decrease in working hours (depending on where the hours are dropping) would have to map to an increase in poverty and/or homelessness unless paired with a decrease in cost of living (which isn't happening here)

There has not been compensation stagnation in the US. When you include everything, total compensation has continued to climb.

Health benefits are expensive, have ballooned massively in cost, and are disregarded in the fake wage stagnation premise that gets thrown around.

The US has gone from 6% of GDP going to healthcare, to around 18-20%. That's where a lot of compensation growth has gone, paying that rising bill. It doesn't mean that compensation does not exist however, it's being spent on a service (that obviously should cost a lot less).

401k and similar compensation is disregarded by the wage stagnation premise.

The dramatic improvement in the US welfare state in the last 20 years is entirely disregarded. That costs a lot of money, heavily paid for by the top 1/3 who pay most of the taxes in the very progressive US taxation system. The share of US GDP going to the welfare state is now higher than other comparable countries like Canada and Australia, and it's climbing faster than both (ie accelerating away from them). That's an entirely disregarded factor in the quality of life for the bottom 1/3 who may find themselves needing to lean on the welfare state at some point, and or routinely draw benefits from it (that are not added into the income picture). When you look at the wage growth figures over the last 20 years, they do not show the large increase in welfare benefits being consumed. The point being, the picture is not nearly so dire as is often claimed.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#96

Post by phillc73 »

kuerbel wrote: post #28
aserafini wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live and work in Germany but I am not German. I believe the work culture here is: if you are having to work outside core hours, you are ineffective and should have managed your workload better. Consequently I believe there is greater focus on continuously doing the most important task during work rather than occupying oneself with 'busy work' that is prevalent in many other work cultures.

I live in Germany as well (I'm Swiss), and people usually get free time in exchange for overtime and not money around here. I think that explains it better, because overtime is pretty prevalent - at least in some jobs. Others not so much. You usually don't have to work more than your usual 8 hours/day in a super market. As a software engineer however...

It's the same where I work in Austria. By law, I cannot work more than 10 hours a day and a 50 hour week (although maybe this changes to 12 hour days and 60 hours a week maximums soon). Any hours worked in excess of 40 per week become compensatory time.

Added to this, 90% of staff where I work have left by latest 14:00 Friday afternoon. This also seems pretty common in Austria generally.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#97

Post by refurb »

roel_v wrote: post #64
schnevets wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ZZP idea is particularly intriguing to me. Do you think this is a direct result of the strong social net, or a sense of independence that existed in Dutch culture before benefits?

What 'strong social net' are people referring to in this thread? As an independent contractor ('zzp'), you don't get unemployment benefits, no insurance against not being able to work and you have to get your own health insurance like everyone else. 'Bijstand'? I mean, that's food stamp level, and you can't have any assets to be eligible in the first place.

HN has a core belief that many EU countries have an immensely more generous social safety net than the US despite the US having welfare, social security, Medicaid and Medicare, food stamps, etc.

Having lives in Canada for many years, I didn’t find it that different than the US with the exception of healthcare.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#98

Post by patio11 »

betadreamer wrote: post #2

Keep in mind that this is showing the "reported" hours, which can be misleading. For example it shows that people in US works more than Japan but I know for a fact that people in Japan works A LOT more. However, since it is a cultural thing and they expect you to work long hours, no one reports overtime. I even heard that you can get fired if you report it.

I have a joke about this which is reasonably descriptive of the mechanism: Japan has a 45 hour work week. Men work 80; women work 10.

(If you prefer the non-joking version you can Google for social science research in Japanese or English; eyeballing the graph here should quickly confirm the impression "Oh yes most women who are employed are not full-time equivalents for either the standard or Japanese understanding of that phrase." https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF_2_1_Usual_working_hours_... )

It is, FWIW, not the case that no one reports overtime. (It is also not the case that everyone reports the correct hours worked. The practice at my previous employer was "We know that you're all diligent and work overtime, and we compensate you for it, of course. The company average is 30 hours of overtime per month. You will, naturally, manage your schedule sufficiently to get your work done in a reasonable fashion, and not violate the Labor Standards Act by working more than X hours per month." And, if you were to check my time cards, you would have seen that I was very diligent about following instructions, in the matter befitting a salaryman at a proper Japanese company.)

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#99

Post by tormeh »

RobertoG wrote: post #24
aserafini wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live and work in Germany but I am not German. I believe the work culture here is: if you are having to work outside core hours, you are ineffective and should have managed your workload better. Consequently I believe there is greater focus on continuously doing the most important task during work rather than occupying oneself with 'busy work' that is prevalent in many other work cultures.

So, if the Greeks work less hours is because they are lazy and if they work more is because they are inefficient. It seems they can't really win.

It's not that they're lazy, they're just clever. Generalizing, in southern countries, job prospects are usually tied to your last name and other things not tied to performance. So people slack off at work because they're not dumb. So their bosses ask them to work longer to compensate.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#100

Post by ainiriand »

halflings wrote: post #23
ainiriand wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only shows that you should not give averages, but means. What we can extrapolate from this is that there is some very big factor pushing this up as it occurs with average household income.

> That only shows that you should not give averages, but means. Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but an average can be a mean, median, or some other summary statistic. Did you mean ( wink ) median* instead?

Hahaha yes, sorry about that I always mix both concepts in english... In spanish there is no way to mix them as the wording is completely different.
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