08-02-2005 22:11									#271
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Question: Wouldn't French productivity growth have something to do with the 35 hour work week and the high cost of labor. It's a built in incentive to squeeze all the productivity out of each worker since costs are so high and low productivity jobs simply move over seas. If we eliminate all the low productivity jobs it looks good on paper but it also means they've lost a great many job fields.

It has to do with it. However, we lost our low-productivity job far sooner than the Yanks (the US fear of "outsourcing" is sooo 1993 to us). Also, very high-return sector is not as important here as in the US (biotech, computers). As such, I'm not sure the difference in productivity per hour is due to structural differences in the economic sectors - I think it has much more to do with the fact that we have enough free time to do our free-time activities outside of the workplace.

	08-02-2005 22:12									#272
	Got spare money?

Spiffor, could you read my post and answer this question of mine:

quote: am I missing something here?

I'm having a feeling that I am...

	08-02-2005 22:16									#273
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: in terms of employment/working age population the EU is slightly below the US (66.1% vs 66.9%), in terms of workforce/working age population it is actually above (71.8% vs 70.8%)

What's the working age in the EU? While this might not prove a significant difference with regard to some EU countries, I expect it might prove so with France.

quote: DanS: Federal EU bureucracy is located in Luxembourg and southern Belgium. Don't underestimate the bureucrat's impact on the economy, they get massive amounts of federal money each year which they'll spend on the local economies.

I live in Washington, D.C. and have a tactile understanding of what that means.

	08-02-2005 22:22									#274
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger The productivity of a worker does not increase linearly with time at work. The unit productivity stays fairly constant for awhile, IIRC at around 6 - 7 hours a day, then drops off.

While I can accept this much

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger That means paying overtime to get extra work done isn't a good idea, you are better off getting some part-time help.

I'm not sure it leads to this conclusion since

1. Sikander's point was about the many additional costs related to a new employee. Even if the part timer is more productive than the overtime worker would have been, the cost of training and bringing the worer into your systems may be such that it is not worthwhile

2. Even though a worker's productivity may decline, an experienced worker is still likely to out-perform a new worker for quite a while (trainign period)

	08-02-2005 22:24									#275
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Add in your commute time and time preparing for work, and you're over the top.

I'll acknowledge commute time as an integral part of working but I have difficulty with the "preparing for work part". What is that? Getting dressed, Showering and shaving?

	08-02-2005 22:24									#276
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by VJ That's not the issue. The issue, the reason why the frogs are protesting now is a proposal to ALLOW private invididuals to work more than the goverment wants them IF THEY WANT TO. I mean, am I missing something here? How can anyone who wants to support workers' rights oppose this proposal?

Because that easily becomes mandatory, i.e., volunteer to work overtime or lose your job. That's frequently how it works in the U.S. It's how we lost our 40 hour work week. If you need extra money, take a second job.

	08-02-2005 22:26									#277
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Question: Wouldn't French productivity growth have something to do with the 35 hour work week and the high cost of labor. It's a built in incentive to squeeze all the productivity out of each worker since costs are so high and low productivity jobs simply move over seas. If we eliminate all the low productivity jobs it looks good on paper but it also means they've lost a great many job fields.

I must be on ignore.

	08-02-2005 22:28									#278
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by el freako If this was the case you would expect a very poor performance in the growth of French total hours worked

Why?

edit: nevermind. Oerdin wasn't saying what I though he was after all.

	08-02-2005 22:28									#279
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Well duh. And I was talking about you. This is the story of right wing ideology. Some selfish people see problems that humanity has. They also see that people have sympathy for their fellow humans. The selfish people say to themselves, "This is an opportunity for us." They create an ideology that says that creating benefits for themselves benefits the world. That is how right wing ideologies are created. The definition of a moderate is someone who is blind to this.

If we are just name-calling I could say

"The story of left wing ideology is lazy people who have less look at those that have more and are envious. It is irrelevant that a person worked twice as much to get twice as much so they define fairness as being "I get what he has" so they take from those that work to give to the lazy".

Thats about as accurate as what you wrote kid

	08-02-2005 22:32									#280
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Paul Lafargue (1841-1911), Karl Marx’s son-in-law, was a leading member of the French socialist movement and played an important rôle in the development of the Spanish socialist movement. A close friend of Friedrich Engels in his later years, he wrote and spoke from a fairly orthodox Marxist perspective on a wide-range of topics including women’s rights, anthropology, ethnology, reformism, Milleranderism, and economics.

The Right to be Lazy.

	08-02-2005 22:32									#281
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Flubber Thats about as accurate as what you wrote kid

It's completely inaccurate. Read Candide by Voltaire. There is no natural order to society. Social order is created by people who have the power to do so.

	08-02-2005 22:36									#282
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Provost Harrison It's pretty crap. Quite often I need an hour extra or so to finish what I am doing but I do get paid for it, as should be anyone's entitlement...

Hmmm- I don't know-- I am salaried and while there is an assumption I will work a certain number of hours per week, I don't get more or less for weekly variation. I like this method

I do get a year end bonus based on billings though so extra work does get rewarded ( kid -- you will be appalled to learn that I am happy to take 30% of those extar billings as compensation)

	08-02-2005 22:51									#283
	Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious It's completely inaccurate. Read Candide by Voltaire. There is no natural order to society. Social order is created by people who have the power to do so.

hmm and this has what to do with anything you or I said in the previous two posts. You have this annoying habit with responding with a new sub-topic and acting like it was the subject all along.

Your 3rd and 4th sentences seem self-evident to me although it is difficult to define who has the power in western democracies. You would say those with money and it would be foolish to deny the "power of money" but there is also a lot of power with the electorate. We are long past the idea of a ruling class imposing things by decree.

	08-02-2005 22:54									#284
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

French productivity just goes to show that nothing really changed in the French economy when they reduced the work week. You had the same output divided by smaller hours (as measured but how reliably?) and so productivity goes up. Fuzzy measurements and fuzzy math leads to fuzzy theories.

	08-02-2005 22:58									#285
	Remove this text

Back on topic


How does the French law apply to salaried folks?? Take a schoolteacher-- The schoolday could be 6 hours a day, say and the treacher is expected to be there certain times before and after the school bell. But she likely works at home


As for hourly folks, if people want a 35 hour week, I can respect that and see no problem except there should be some flexibility. Take nurses-- you can't plan for when one gets sick and with a nursing shortage, you probably don't have a pool of people sitting around with the necessary skills and willing to come in. So a unit needs an additional nurse . .. realistically the only option is to call in a regular nurse for overtime. Mrs Flubber only works 22 hours a week and usually gets overtime ( double pay) if she works beyond that.

Any limit on hours worked needs to be reasonable and flexible. There are probably a number of fields where it is impossible to have a pool of waiting workers available if required, yet work needs to get done

	08-02-2005 23:02									#286
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

There are plenty of examples where critical labor needs are left unmet. France is one country where a lot of people go on vacation at the same time. A couple of years ago, this occurred during a big heat wave. There were not enough medical personnel to check up on old people left alone and a fair number died of heat stroke.

	08-02-2005 23:11									#287
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by pchang There are plenty of examples where critical labor needs are left unmet. France is one country where a lot of people go on vacation at the same time. A couple of years ago, this occurred during a big heat wave. There were not enough medical personnel to check up on old people left alone and a fair number died of heat stroke.

Ouch

I know in Mrs Flubber's unit they only let so many people take vacation at a time since the patients will keep coming regardless. When they need to get extra staff they have a policy where they have to offer voluntary overtime to everyone before they can REQUIRE someone to come to work. The reality is that there is usually someone who wants the shift at double pay.

	08-02-2005 23:15									#288
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Well, the old people were alone in their homes, not at a hospital. In any case, it appears that it is standard in France for medical types to check in on old people from time to time (but not during vacation time). It was just bad luck that the heat wave and vacation time coincided (though since the vacation time is in August, maybe it wasn't bad luck so much as it was inevitability).

	09-02-2005 02:02									#289
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by DanS What's the working age in the EU? While this might not prove a significant difference with regard to some EU countries, I expect it might prove so with France.

Working age population is that aged 15-64 for all the calculations I made above - it would make no sense to use a different denominator for different countries now would it?
The specific figures for France are employment 61.1%, workforce 67.7% (up from 57.5% and 65.4% ten years ago)

The EU15 figures are employment 66.1% (up from 60.1% ten years ago) and workforce 71.9% (up from 67.2% 10 years ago)

For the US employment was 67.0% (up from 65.7%) and the workforce was 70.9% (up from 70.0%)


Figures differ slightly from previous post due to updated info and rounding errors.

	09-02-2005 02:15									#290
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Flubber hmm and this has what to do with anything you or I said in the previous two posts.

	09-02-2005 11:07									#291
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

so that settles it - the 35 hr workweek is more productive in france than a 40 hr. in america. now lets look at annual hours worked per employee (from the same site)

here is LP-Hour EKS

1st, Norway 132%
2nd, Luxembourg 125%
3rd, France 120%
4th Belgium 114%
5th, Netherlands 109%
6th, Ireland 106%
7th, Austria 102%
8th, Germany 102%
9th, United States 100%
10th, Denmark 98%
11th, Italy 96%
12th, Finland 92%
13th, Switzerland 91%
14th, United Kingdom 90%
15th, Sweden 89%
16th, Australia 83%
17th, Canada 83%
18th, Spain 77%
19th, Japan 75%
20th, Iceland 72%
21st, New Zealand 65%
22nd, Greece 65%
23rd, Portugal 54%
24th, Hungary 52%
25th, Czech Republic 42%
26th, Mexico 39%
27th, Slovakia 39%
28th, Poland 38%
29th, South Korea 31%
30th, Turkey 26%

here is annual hours worked per employee index to USA (USA=100)

1. Greece/Turkey 107%
3. Iceland/ USA 100%
5. Spain 99%
6. Australia/Canada/ Japan 97%
9. New Zealand 96%
10. Portugal 93%
11. Ireland/ UK 89%
13. Italy 88%
14. Finland 87%
15. Belgium/Luxembourg/Sweden/Austria 86%
19. Switzerland 83%
20. Denmark 81%
21. Germany 80%
22. France 77%
23. Netherlands/Norway 74%

	09-02-2005 12:00									#292
	Increase Your PM Length

heres a crappy graph. does anyone have a better graph program? also, can someone figure out how to put the best fit line to it? The x and y axis are indexed to USA=100

Attachment: labor stats.xls
This has been downloaded 2 time(s).

Last edited by Lawrence of Arabia on 09-02-2005 at 12:17

	09-02-2005 12:03									#293
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Can you give a caption for what the abbreviation "LP-Hour EKS" means?

	09-02-2005 12:04									#294
	Full PM-box? Change here!

so what can we see? in general, the trend is that the less hours worked, the more productive each hour is. turks, who work in general 7% more than an american, are also 75% less productive in their time. Greece, who also leads the way in hours worked, is 35% less productive than america per hour worked. Norway is the most productive country per hour worked, even though in general, norwegians work 25% less than americans.

	09-02-2005 12:08									#295
	Increase Your PM Length

sure. LP-Hour EKS means

Labor productivity per hour worked at 2002 US dollars PPP. The EKS method is a method of calculating PPP, and is a more accurate way than the Geary Khamis approach (GK). For example, the GK understates the world poverty levels by about a 1/3.

	09-02-2005 12:11									#296
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Okay thanks.

It seems the law of diminishing returns holds here.

Anyone want to guess at where the equillibrium is?

I'm gonna say 32.5 hours per week.

	09-02-2005 12:28									#297
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

i think that looking at annual work rather than weekly work is better because weekly work doesnt include the vacation time. the more vacation you take, the more productive you will be during the time that you are working.

looking at the graph, it seems that america is a bad country to compare to because it seems to be off the best fit line by a bunch. it is way more productivce per hour worked than comparable OECD countries at around the same annual hours per year (Japan, iceland, spain) for whatever reason (hard working immigrants, welfare?, etc.)

	09-02-2005 12:30									#298
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

We rule.

	09-02-2005 12:33									#299
	Put an end to popups!

lets take france for example. France works 400 hours less than America per year (1400 to 1800) which is 20%. France also is 20% more productive. the net gain (20 - 20) is zero, which means that by going to the 35 hour week, france has lost nothing relative to america. they accomplish the same amount of labor productivity in 20% of the time. (note: even though america is off the best fit line and is a bad country to take, it still pays for france to go to the 35 hr week.)

the conclusion is that the french person not only works less, but gets the same amount done as the american, who works more. i dont think theres anyway to dispute that going to a 35 hr week for france, and for many countries, is a bad idea

	09-02-2005 22:31									#300
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious It's completely inaccurate. Read Candide by Voltaire. There is no natural order to society. Social order is created by people who have the power to do so.

OK kid of the

How do your statements in sentences 3 and 4 relate? I find them self evident. Obviously social order is created by the people with the power to do so. It would kinda be ineffective if attempted by the people without the power doncha think?

Now where we would probably disagree is on the question as to who has the power. I am sure you would say that it is the folks with money and I would often agree that that is true. But the rich no longer rule by decree and I think you have to acknowledge the power of the masses ( the electorate). Rich folks do not have it all their way (although it may seem so in a Bush government )-- Look at other democratic countries with stronger social programs and more progressive taxation and tell me that those were imposed by the rich-- Nope they are evidence that lots of folks can have power in a democracy