(Using bikeshare ride data to determine peak hours and length of workday)
http://olivernash.org/2011/02/02/dublin-bikes-revisited/inde...
e.g. my country (the Netherlands) is listed as 1439 hours vs Mexico 2257 hours annually per worker. You might come to the conclusion that people in Mexico work must longer than in the Netherlands. However, only 17% of people in Mexico work part-time, vs 37% in the Netherlands. Countries with low participation of part-time workers therefore will look as if they are working much longer hours.
Perhaps ‘correcting’ is the wrong word. But the title feels like: this is a ranked list which countries work hardest. I think the figure fails to capture that a family where both parents work 30 hours is not working less than a family where only one parent works 50 hours.
In my opinion, if that’s the comparison we want to make, it would be more fair to look at average hours worked per capita, or average hours worked per capita between ages 16-70, or something similar. That would capture both average hours and labor force participation.
* 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 senior managers - there is no loss in promotion prospects.
* High levels of self-employment as independent contractors - "ZZP-ers" - zelfstandig zonder personeel (self-supporting without employees), often from mid-career professionals taking redundancy packages and setting up for themselves with greater flexibility for work-life balance at often slightly lower take home pay.
* Strong social net, health system, pension provision, social housing, etc, mean most Dutch people have very little to worry about. They can afford to prioritise enjoying life over being a slave to their employer.
One final anecdote concerns my local cafe in Amsterdam... In Melbourne, the equivalent cafe opened at 6:30am and was busy by 7am. The one near me in Amsterdam opened at 8:29am (yes, not 8:30...). When I asked why they didn't open earlier, the owner said the staff didn't want to start that early, and neither did he.
Having lives in Canada for many years, I didn’t find it that different than the US with the exception of healthcare.
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.
Flexworkers come in two main categories:
- Uitzendkracht - agency workers, hired via an employment bureau such as Adecco, Randstat.
- ZZP-ers - often independent consultants, in many cases starting with a former employer as their initial client.
Because it seems that the standard in Australia and NZ is for cafes to open early and close early, at around 3pm or 4pm.
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.
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.
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.
Ironically, Dutch paternity leave is only 2 days (paid), but you’re legally allowed to take something like 26 weeks unpaid in the first few years as parental leave. (Vs e.g. Sweden with 6-9 months). The law is changing to a few weeks next year I believe.
I think it differs by employer. Mine gives extra days paid leave for parents as they consider the 2 days too short (but this is uncommon) and proactively asked if I was considering 90% or 80% for the coming year, and shared how others have done this.
At my wife’s workplace there are many people with children, and the large majority works either 3 or 4 days per week.
(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.)
No they don’t. Not your average part-time worker at the supermarket registry, nor your mostly stay at home mother doing 4h a day at the convinience store.
This study is not just about high profile workers, it’s for the global working population, “blue collar” and part timers included.
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 versus 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave...
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)
The graph on the right on Page 1 has an orange line at the top representing the total hours worked per year by an average "ordinary" (meaning full-time) worker.
The red line below that represents the average part-time worker.
The dates are from Heisei 6 (1994) through 25 (2013).
So we can see that as of 2013, the average full-time worker in Japan reported that they worked 2018 hours a year. I'd be interested in seeing comparable statistics for the US and other countries.
[1] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-11201000-Roudoukiju... (in Japanese)
EDIT TO ADD: It's also worth noting that the increasing blue bars in the right-hand graph represent an increase in the percentage of people in part-time work, which corresponds to a decrease in overall (full- and part-time) work hours in the graph on the left (the blue line). So the arguments about a higher percentage of part-time workers being significant in lowering the average seem to be right.
No, you dont know it for a fact, and you should also add that Japanese working in large corporations just STAY late because they have to, not because they are actively working. So "working hours" is not always about work if you consider the time they are physically at work.
I think that's a distinction without relevance, depending on what you are trying to infer from the data. Plenty of people spend a portion of their paid workday not doing work either, along a wide spectrum. Some people do no active work besides fill a seat, others take no breaks beyond what is required and stay on task the entire time (sometimes there is no option to do otherwise by the nature of the work). If you're at work, you aren't able to do certain other activities you might like to do (for example, it prevents spending time with your children, even if you are allowed to recline and watch a movie while at your desk).
We can measure hours working, we can measure productivity, or we can combine them, but it's probably not useful for us to start conflating them.
So if say, the average South Korean man works 2500 hours (full time, crazy hours) and the average woman works 1000 hours (pretty crazy part time job) - the average would still be below 2000 hours.
I suppose one of the more interesting numbers would be total hours worked vs total work force (including unemployed) - it might be that eg Greece could maintain current productivity (or more likely increase, due to less strain pr worker) by going to a 6 hour work day and ~full employment.
Source? None? Ok, let's use the on linked here that contradicts you.
Your evidence ...