On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 12:18:18PM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> You are forgetting about vacation time. How many weeks a year of
> vacation do Britons take?
Four weeks.
But the figure for hours worked per week is over 44 hours per week.
So we get (52 - 4) x 44 = 2112 hours per year worked, assuming no sick
time (there's no entitlement to automatic sick time in the UK).
> If Brits take four weeks of vacation a year, that means the average work
> week is 35.8 hours. If you blokes take six weeks of vacation a year,
> that means you average 37.4 hours a week.
Yeah, which is why this study is bogus; the actual hours worked are
quite a lot higher than that.
> > So either the British are deeply, pathologically, ill -- taking 25% of
> > their worktime off sick -- or these figures are Just Plain Wrong.
>
> Ah, now thats another interesting take. How many sick days a year do you
> get over there? Since its a fact that people with cheaper health care
> will use it far more frequently (irrespective of whether they get sick
> more often), I'd expect that Brits take at least a few more sick days a
> year than Americans.
Probably not. There's no statutory sick time; or rather, while you're off
sick, the social security system kicks in with some statutory sick pay
and your employer is supposed to make up the difference. As SSP has been
falling behind the wages index for a few decades, it's now down to less
than 30% of the average income. People in most jobs don't have health
insurance, so if they're off sick, they lose pay.
-- Charlie
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