Bloomberg is terrible. If it's not a nearly baseless hatchet job on China, it's a nearly baseless hatchet job on Europe. Next up? Canada.
Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
351–360 of 405 posts
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absurd to use languages spoken as a proxy for cultural diversity. That being said, according to wikipedia there are 430 languages spoken in the US. There are 32 languages used by 100,000+ people. And implying that simply because people speak the same language they have the same culture is nuts. People in Utah have the exact same language and accent as people in California but the two populations have very differ…
You and salmon30salmon are missing the point. Language is an indicator of 4000+ years of local cultural differentiation. The rest of us europeans are just trying not to say something about 200years worth of adopting cultures. That does indeed create a unique multifaceted community, but surely you realise how much in common you have with most of the rest of the US population? In Europe these language barriers correspo…
But the point is that the US is 100-200 years of homogenization veneer on cultures ranging from Asian to African to European to indingenous.
In that sense, the US has a broader base of those enclaves within the country and less time to have built a coherent cultural identity between those populations.
Europe, by contrast, hasn't forced the veneer over all of the enclaves (eg, single language), but the enclaves share a more similar historic background.
It's different kinds of diversity, really. Stable multi-components versus broader partial fusion.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#353I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this: People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva -The income range in the US is so large that there are lots of people at the bottom end who have to work multiple jobs. How much does that have to do with the longer work hours, Blo…
> This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire. Very few people retire at 20 or 40; I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65. Is it not good for us all to have the contributions, knowledge & experience of those over 65 in the workplace? Pension p…
"I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65."
Cause there's more to life than work? For most people, vacations are discouraged, and there's lots of stuff that people are told to "wait until retirement" to do. If they're never going to retire, when are they going to do stuff that isn't job?
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
A senior ie 10 years experience in London is unlikely to make more than $70k which is about half what the starting salary is for google in the valley
There are plenty of senior dev jobs in London that pay far more than that. I passed that level in London 15 years ago. At that time I had about 6 years experience. It depends much more on niche, how well your market yourself, and what type of companies you work for.
ah just realized I used $ instead on £ there.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#355How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state. Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...
Leaving aside Wall-street the Tech Bubble where people work grueling hours in the hopes of becoming a millionaire, the rest of the US works grueling hours because they need to in order to eat, pay their rent, etc. Telling someone who is working 40+ hours in order to make ends meet that they need to "work less" is tantamount to telling them to become homeless and destitute.
I don't think people would be telling them not to work; more they'd be telling their bosses not to be such cheap asses.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#356I've worked in both Europe and the US, and in my opinion, US workers are far worse off for it. You earn more money in the US, you can advance faster, but you have next-to-no vacation time (and even when you do, you're still often expected to be reachable by e-mail), maternity/paternity leave is pitiful, and you have to pay large health insurance premiums, amongst other things. I know that isn't the case for everyone,…
Sorry for this small rant .... I dont understand why everyone is so caught up with answering emails on vacation. Yes - it's not ideal, but as long as your not expected to be on your phone all day, and in my experience, you are not unless you own your own business, are a doctor, etc. then what is the big deal? 5/10 minutes of email's in the morning means Europeans have a better work/life balance ? If you work for a sm…
> I dont understand why everyone is so caught up with answering emails on vacation
I'm 35, been working since I was 21, but still get a little (sometimes more) anxious each morning when coming to work and thinking that I have to open my email.
> 5/10 minutes of email's in the morning means Europeans have a better work/life balance ?
It's not "5/10" minutes. It's one or two hours before the fact, thinking "should I check my email? no, I'm sure everything is ok back at work", then another 2 or 3 hours after you actually checked your email, thinking at what you have just read and possibly replied. So, there goes half of your vacation day thinking and stressing about work.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#357[deleted]
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's harder to move from a class to another compared to the US. Not true: social mobility in US is lower than in Europe and Canada.
There's at least two Americas. If you are born middle class or with an intact family structure or immigrate, opportunity is unlimited. If you're born here poor/without a family structure, or were born in the wrong place, you're stuck in a feudal-like system.
Anecdata: It can be escaped. I grew up in a divorced household. Poor. In the middle of nowhere. I even had a kid early, at 15. I'm now firmly in the middle class. I feel that if I were less risk adverse, I could find myself moving even higher up.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#359Read a previous study on this same topic, and they hypothesized that it was due to cultural differences. In the US, socialization happens mostly through coworker interaction, and people's worth is assessed by the job you have and the money you make. Where as in Europe, socialization happens mostly out of work, in bars, coffee shops, etc. And people's worth is judged more from their hobbies, knowledge and social qualities.
I thought that was a pretty good hypothesis. It even reflects in the political tendencies each place demonstrate. A lot of people in the US aspire to be CEOs or rich, most people in France for example aspire to have a good glass of wine on the coast of France playing bocce ball all day.
To give some context, the other study I refer to found that Americans are happier when they work longer, while European were happier when they worked least.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#360How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state. Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...
It's almost like working 60+ hour weeks churning out CRUD apps to get a rich person richer isn't the secret path to happiness or something.
How common is this really? I've worked at three companies. One big, one small, one medium. And at all of them I work around 40 hours making 6 figures, and feel like I'm working more than everyone else at the company.
Where are all these 60+ hour workers? Are they making even MORE money?