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Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

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Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#101

Post by joesmo »

JackFr wrote: post #17

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data…

GDP per capita is a terrible measure here. There are countries that work significantly less than us and still have similar or higher productivity levels (some countries like Switzerland even have higher GDP per capita though that's still irrelevant). Not to mention a much higher quality of life. (http://www.salon.com/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2...)

This isn't surprising considering the water cooler based work culture in the US. This benefits no one, but since there are almost no laws protecting workers, most workers have no choice but to comply or be fired. Then, of course, you have the people that do it intentionally, especially in the software industry, as a badge of honor or because delusional thinking makes them seem productive when they're actually less productive. The ones who can take vacation and won't. Mixing the desperate former and insane latter is exactly what most US companies strive for as their ideal work culture.

What the article overlooks is the unemployment caused by overtime. Two people working at 60 hours are roughly equivalent to one 40 hour a week job taken out of the economy--though obviously, the quality is much less than having a dedicated third person working. This isn't true for all jobs, just most.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#102

Post by brown9-2 »

vvvv wrote: post #53
ghshephard wrote: post #20

Even worse is the new trend in technology companies to eliminate "Set Vacation". It used to be the case that you felt "obliged" somehow to take your 10 days of vacation a year, because you saw it piling up. Even better, if you were laid off, you could get the vacation in cash, and that helped when you were cut off without a job. But now, a lot of technology companies are saying, "No Set Vacation - you need to negotia…

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

The US is one of (or the only?) industrialized nations to have no legally mandated amount of paid time off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacation_time#Statutory_Vacatio...

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#103

Post by fh973 »

JackFr wrote: post #17

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data…

You seem to imply that higher GDP of a country is relevant for quality of life of its citizen. Knowing the US and Europe, I was also wondering what this high GDP is about, because it surely does not translate to material wealth.

Googling reveals: GDP includes military expenses, bloated health care expenses, bloated education costs, ... I guess that explains the relation.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#104

Post by brown9-2 »

tokenadult wrote: post #67
vvvv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off? It depends on the nature of the employment. A few occupations (notably in banking) have MANDATORY days off. (Forcing bankers in certain categories of jobs to take vacations is a good way to detect long-term embezzlement schemes.) But there are definitely programming jobs in the United States in which the company says, "You can take time off whenever you li…

The banking example you cite are voluntary industry practices or self-regulation, not legally enforced.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#105

Post by radikalus »

There is surely some freedom in being able to set whatever policies you like at your company without having a federal entity stipulate you give each employee X days of paid vacation.

If you want to heavily incentivize a cultural shift towards more vacation time for US employees, I don't think a federal mandate is as attractive as just an economic incentive. (Tax break to companies where X% of employees take more than Y days per year etc)

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#106

Post by njharman »

People in tech industry (all I know) tend to call in sick to "recharge" or get things done (that are causing them stress) rather than take vacation. The interesting thing is that this tacitly known to not really be sick and accepted both by peers and management. Vacation == lazy. Sick days == we all pretend we work 60hr weeks non-stop.

Cultural anecdote example from http://maebert.github.io/jrnl/installation.html#quickstart

  2012-03-29 09:00 Called in sick.
  Used the time to clean the house and spent 4h on writing my book.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#107

Post by autokad »

thegeomaster wrote: post #65
autokad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i made a statement, backed it up by mentioning productivity, and then made a reference to a real world example that I have observed, unlike the article that just mostly made platitudes. if you'd like further evidence, the EU area has an unemployment rate close to 12%. companies are not anxious to hire europeans for one reason or another.

Platitudes? On the contrary, the article made a lot of claims to back up the central point, and backed almost every one of them with research papers. The countries with a high unemployment rate are also poorer and lack other benefits, most notably the mentioned vacations. We're talking about developed EU countries, and that's what we're comparing against the US.

France, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain are developed nations, they just don't suit your argument. They all have or did have very long vacation days per year.

And you cant just cherry pick a few european countries and compare against the whole of the US. If we are going to play that game, why not pit them against silicon valley, manhatan, etc.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#109

Post by Shivetya »

You know it is very easy to be generous with another person's money. Yet mandating yourself rights to their money will likely lead to less jobs as many can be off shored. I know, what about those service jobs; automation.

Guild tripping works to a point. However this is a two way street. Many companies voluntarily offer paid maternity leave, some offer time off and paid time off. Yet who is there to hold the workers accountable? Just the cost of doing business? We all know people at work or have know that so abuse the system it makes your head spin.

In professional fields we have a choice who we work for, we can choose the good companies and if they continue to do well that will encourage their competitors to step up their game. However we should never assume we deserve something just because someone else has it or we convince ourselves its a good idea.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#110

Post by mike_hearn »

switch007 wrote: post #55
Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no safety net. That's a wonderfully succinct way of describing the US. It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example), whereas there really is no lower limit on how low the US will let you fall (e.g. healthcare is a privilege not a right in the US). They do say that the US has some of the highest anti-depre…

>It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example) For the avoidance of doubt, that does not include England (these days). People with cancer in the final stages are declared fit to work

Can you show me a link for that? I'd be interested in reading about it.

What I've read is that a lot of people on disability benefits (higher than jobseekers allowance) were in fact just fine and when properly re-examined magically stopped being disabled.

However, that assumes the review assessment was more reliable than the old one. I'd be interested in data showing whether it is or isn't.

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