Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 10:37:19PM -0700, Olga Bourlin wrote:
> >
> > SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
> >
> > U.S. workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and
> >all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year,
> >according to a report issued yesterday by the International Labor
> >Organization. It found that Americans added nearly a full week to their
> >work year during the 1990s. They worked 1,979 hours on average last year
> >-- that's 49 1/2 weeks.
> >
> > That's 137 more hours or 3 1/2 weeks more per year than Japanese
> >workers, 260 hours (about 6 1/2 weeks) more per year than British
> >workers and 499 hours (12 1/2 weeks) more per year than German workers,
> >the report said.
>
> Deeply questionable figures. Let's take 50 working weeks in the year,
> and 5 days per week; we get 250 working days. 1979 hours a year then
> gives us an average 7.9 hours per working day.
>
> Now let's look at the UK figures. 1979 - 260 = 1719. 1719/250 = 6.87
> working hours per day, or (6.87 x 5) an average 34.4 hour working
> week.
>
> Huh?
You are forgetting about vacation time. How many weeks a year of
vacation do Britons take?
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.
>
> Official figures in the UK suggest the average working week has been
> creeping up, to more like 45 hours. (We keep getting bombarded with
> earnest op-ed news features about it, along with hand-wringing about
> workplace stress and the way people make more errors when they work more
> than 44 hours a week.)
This is the average of full time workers, not including part timers. If
you did, and had a 45 hour average, this means you have as many people
as the part timers working 70+hours a week.
>
> 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.
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