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Average annual hours worked per country

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Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#101

Post by ericd »

germinalphrase wrote: post #13
smueller1234 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a complete response to your question, but at least it is very common for families to to have both parents working part time (eg. four days each) and pay for childcare only for the remaining days. In countries where it's more common to have one full time salary in a family, the average working time per worker would be higher.

inlove that that is a common arrangement for parents. Do businesses accommodate a reduction in hours to facilitate this? We’re not very accommodating of parenthood here in the US. Medical costs aside, my employer only offers two weeks of paid parental leave after having a child.

That really depends on the employer. One large US employer I know of (Cisco) offers full salary for something like five or six months, and also offers grandparent leave.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#102

Post by stevesimmons »

dwightgunning wrote: post #94
toomanybeersies wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(ex-Melbournian living in London/Amsterdam with a sister who owned cafes in Melbourne ...)

In Melbourne there are two kinds of cafes (to overgeneralize):

- Those in areas with nightlife are open at least 07:00-22:30 (e.g. The Fitz, Marios in Brunswick St, Brunetti's in Carlton). Most customers sit down for meals or coffee and cake. They have full restaurant-style kitchens and make their margins from a traditional food menu and serving wine with dinner.

- Those in office areas are typically open 06:30-15:00 for breakfast and lunch and maybe an early afternoon coffee. They often operate out of smaller premises, have just a couple of tables, and most customers take-away. They make most of their margin from coffee. Food is simple - sandwiches, soup and salads - because they have minimal kitchen areas.

My sister used to own one of these cafes that closed at 3pm. After previously owning a hotel that was a very full 24x7 job, they decided to live in a rural area outside Melbourne to build their own house. Owning this type of cafe was attractive because they would be home by the time their kids got out of school.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#103

Post by arvinsim »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #82
kuerbel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I really wish flexitime was a thing in more countries. I'd happily work 45 hours a week in exchange for an extra couple of weeks of annual leave. 4 weeks (Australian standard leave) just isn't long enough for a good trip anywhere, especially since you usually end up burning a week of leave through the year for random things.

Most Asian countries only have 15 days annual leaves...

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#104

Post by roel_v »

Reactionary_ wrote: post #92
roel_v wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know, I tried my hardest to keep my post non-normative - it's basically a factual one paragraph summary of every goverment report on this of the last 15 years. In the context of the overall thread, the underlying point is that 'nr of hours worked' is only one data point, and is only meaningful when interpreted for a well defined purpose and when considered with many other factors.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#105

Post by roel_v »

refurb wrote: post #97
roel_v wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well to be fair, I think that most people in many EU countries think the same, until they actually learn the details or find themselves experiencing it...

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#106

Post by dragonwriter »

refurb wrote: post #97
roel_v wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

It is an simple fact that a number of EU countries have an immensely more generous social safety net than the US, even with the US having some basic support for families with dependent children in poverty, a minimal safety net pension, some minimal provision for the medically indigent, some basic provision for health care for aged ex-workers, and a system of food support for the poor.

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

Even assuming that the claim made here based on the flimsiest of claims of authority was correct, it is irrelevant, Canada is not even an EU member, much less a country they supports any generalization about the EU.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#107

Post by kevingadd »

adventured wrote: post #95
kevingadd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

Increased health care costs doesn't mean that compensation has gone up, many workers don't have health coverage provided by their employer. For people without employer-provided health care there are huge gaps in government-provided health care (often gaps created on purpose). Combine that with the minimum wage literally being unchanged in many states for decades... Not to mention employer plans' deductibles, coverage and copays can change as costs go up.

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#109

Post by nemonemo »

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.

No, the correct conclusion is that the metric “work hour” is just likely inconsistent and has little value by itself. The real tragedy is that beaureaucrats or media use these weak metrics to back up their claims one way or another..

Re: Average annual hours worked per country

#110

Post by nickthemagicman »

ramblerman wrote: post #108
nickthemagicman wrote: post #87

U.S.A. 1780 / 52 = 34.23 Are there people that only work 34ish hours a week? I'm working way more than that.

1) You are not factoring any holidays by dividing by 52 2) People also work part time

Ah thanks. But still seems like a smaller number than I was expecting.
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