Around Germany and Greece there were other countries. They went by names like frugal four and PIIGS. They forced “austerity” and stricter working hours onto indebted countries to save their own banks.
The colours on this map show well that northern “productivity” is not about working hours, but about other topics that did not get addressed. Among these topics are also tax heavens (think the Netherlands) and money laundering (think Austria’s special relationship with Russia).
So it was nothing more than poor political leadership without vision.
What matter is the productivity of those hours, if they work longer hours but their time isn’t as productive then another country might be better off with less average work hours.
We could also ask why they work so much and we need to check unemployment levels and salaries. If the ones who work do so for 50h (pulling the average up), is it maybe because unemployment is high and wages are low so they need to compensate to feed their family?
okay, but regarding productivity: do you really buy that idea?
Because to me that would imply that greek workers are just less productive than german workers, which is why they have to work so hard.
There are a lot of other factors at play
I’m German for context. I was born into a country that was already pretty well-off economically speaking, long before I could participate. I got a great education for free. I dont work less because I’m more productive or efficient. I work less, because our country can afford better labor laws and there is a social net that catches family members who are struggling and/or have bad health. I got work at all because the german economy performs comparably well and our politicians and rich people didnt screw up this bad. At least not when our own country is concerned. Dont want to make a statement about foreign policy.
They might be, they might not be, but if they are less productive even when working more hours then something must be done to both help the country and give them more free time.
well, what happened is that Greece was forced into a state of austerity that didnt help absolve them of debt and ultimately caused more damage than good. Especially for the working population.
Thats kinda important, regarding Germanys role in “helping” the country.
I’m working in software. Don’t tell me that I’m more productive when I work in finance than when I work in social services. Because that’s what the numbers show. It’s just that in finance your work generates more revenue and gives you a bigger salary. That’s what productivity measures. And people in many places around the world, including Southern Europe do not really care about revenues as long as they have enough to live well. That’s how they end up with lower “productivity”. Of course in other sectors it’s not ai immediate, but it is the same. If you are a farmer and sell to your community, you’re not productive. If you export to retail chains you’re very productive.
Obviously you compare people doing the same thing. If two employees with the same position have vastly different productivity you know there’s an issue with one of them. It’s the same thing when comparing neighboring countries, two manufacturing plants producing the same thing have vastly different productivity for the same amount of work hours? What’s different between them?
I understand you’re fine with measuring everything in revenue. Fortunately, human happiness and satisfaction are not measured in dollars.
It isn’t necessarily revenues, how many patients a physiotherapist sees on average over a year is a measure of productivity, if you see that it’s much lower for all of them in country X vs Y then you can start looking at how they work compared to one another and you could realize that it’s a paperwork issue that makes the physios from country X less productive and then you can implement the paperwork management process from country Y in country X.
We have this exact issue where I’m from, doctors spend about 25% of their time doing paperwork where it’s much lower in other jurisdictions.
This is drifting off, but number of visits is not an indication of healthcare success. Perceived improvement could be.
Do I really have to give specific examples of everything or you’re able to extrapolate yourself that you use a mix of data to dress a portrait of the situation and then you’re able to compare and see the differences between countries or regions? In the end that’s what you’re looking for, inefficiencies that can be fixed.
Hell in office jobs it’s well known that they accomplish the same amount of work in 35h in France as they accomplish in 40h in the US as they accomplish in 60h in Japan, so clearly productivity per hour is best in France.
Exactly, often workers of mental labor have a general amount of mental labor they can give to their job per week. They’ll try to get that labor done at a pace suiting themselves and attempt to look busy the remainder of the time they’re at work. That or they’ll try to push themselves and often produce subpar work after a certain point. Good workers self optimize to the best of their ability and comfort. Letting them go home once they’ve done a day’s work can actually improve productivity as they don’t have to spend mental energy pretending to work or getting frustrated they aren’t finding the solutions and instead can rest or focus on recreational tasks and return refreshed.
Last I checked, and this is as an American, 30-32 hours is a pretty good amount. But labor has the right to fight for conditions better than that.