What's scary though is that instead of working more to pay for what is guaranteed to be 7 years of financial famine, the western world seems to be working less.
Additional nots is that Korea is doing quite well, though still declining and the world's "best" country according to the UN and other self-back-patters, Norway, works the least of us all (then again they do have oil).
Wow, watch the lazy Germans. They don't have oil and yet they work even less than the French.
ReplyDeleteUnbevielable that there was a time when the French worked more than the Americans! How times have changed.
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ReplyDeleteVery interesting graph. Dissecting the reason for the decline is even more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf Norway has a tax structure like Sweden did, it's not surprising. Because of high marginal tax rates, high wage earners like doctors would work only half a year.
Some European countries have a 35 hour work week, but wouldn't they just employ part-time workers or creative shifts to maintain full worker coverage?
If they are replacing labor with capital, we should be seeing unemployment rising in concert with this.
You're absolutely right that the foundations of social security are being eroded. When it started, there were 16 workers for every recipient. Now there are only 2. By 2040 there will be only 1. Unless we privatize now, all indications are that current workers will pay twice as much for the same benefits through increased taxes cutting the rate of return in half.
Ok, so the average American employee works 1800 hours a year.
ReplyDeleteGeeze, I'm almost 50% higher than that. Of course, I'm salaried. A lot of that is weekend and late night work.
I love (sarcasm) the work all day Friday, come back in at 9PM and work through 6AM Saturday bit - the joy of IT.
Looks like I need a trip to Norway, France or Germany for some slacker lessons.
Seriously, I'm sure the work hours per year have an effect on the country's GDP doesn't it?
I also wonder how much union work rules limit the hours in countries where there are heavy union presence?
Some European countries have a 35 hour work week, but wouldn't they just employ part-time workers or creative shifts to maintain full worker coverage?
ReplyDeleteIf they are replacing labor with capital, we should be seeing unemployment rising in concert with this.
That is pretty much what happened. In many European countries, e.g. Germany and The Netherlands, almost 50% of the labor force is employed part-time.
What I find interesting is that the US has been pretty much a flat line. With the innovation and increases in productivity we have had I would actually expect more of a decline than there appears to be.
ReplyDeleteWould those downward trendlines correspond with increased government hiring?
ReplyDeleteWith a constant decline of that magnitude.. is all this any wonder? Is anyone still in denial about government spending?
ReplyDeleteAnd not to worry, the 'plan' to bail non-productive auto manufacturers would of course help this.
As we can see the profitability of this (dated but still pertinent) article.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/
Maybe we should let Toyota run our countries (Canadian here)
I'd honestly expect us to be working less than we did in 1960. I don't know if many people reading this blog remember what work was like in 1960, but it took a lot more working hours to get things done back then.
ReplyDeleteA lot of nations have simply cashed in increased standards of living as more free time. Which is a choice that is up to them to make, really.
A chard of gdp vs. hours worked would be interesting though.