Nations were people work least (and make some of the highest wages)

[No Elephants]

http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/29/12816364-countries-where-people-work-least?lite

Very interesting article. For instance, German workers tend to work the fewest hours, yet their wages are 7th highest.

Americans tend to puff with pride whenever our politicians describe us as highly productive workers.

Maybe we should take less pride in that until our wages are commensurate with our productivity!

examples:

Germany

Average annual hours per person: 1,330
Average working hours per week: 25.6
Average wage per hour: $35.33 (7th highest)
2011 unemployment rate: 6 percent

Every year since 2007, Germans had the fewest hours worked on average, with a low of 1,296 in 2009. One reason this number was so low is that in 2011 14.7 percent of all employees were temporary workers, while 22.1 percent only worked part-time, both above OECD averages. Those in permanent, full-time positions also had significant time for themselves, as only 5.14 percent of Germans work more than 50 hours a week, less than half the 10.86 percent of Americans who worked that much in 2011. The average German had 15.31 hours a day to devote to leisure, one of the highest figures among OECD countries. In 2009, the German government introduced a program that allowed companies to cut work weeks for employees, as opposed to firing them, in exchange for the government’s pledge to cover remaining wages.

2) Netherlands

Average annual hours per person: 1,336
Average working hours per week: 25.7
Average wage per hour: $42.67 (4th highest)
2011 unemployment: 4.4 percent

Workers in the Netherlands enjoy low levels of unemployment, high incomes and one of the smallest proportion of employees working 50 or more hours a week -- at only 0.7 percent. GDP per capita is also third highest among the countries we reviewed. In the OECD report, the Netherlands had the highest reported proportion of part-time workers in 2011 at 37.2 percent.

3) France

Average annual hours per person: 1,392
Average working hours per week: 26.8
Average wage per hour: $34.26 (8th highest)
2011 unemployment rate: 9.3 percent

http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/29/12816364-countries-where-people-work-least?lite

[Enthusiast]

1. In the United States we got rid of organized labor.

Or nearly almost. That is working out nicely. Now we work like dogs for less reward and more profit for the few.

I have news for these happy Europeans; the Fascists have the American model in mind for you. If they have to destroy your economy through the actions of a criminal financial system to accomplish these ends, they will do it. And they are....doing it.

[No Elephants]

2. Europeans have unions, but they also have workers who will strike and demonstrate at what seems like

the drop of a hat, or a beret.

Union leadership can do only so much without a brave and energetic workforce.

Americans, in part because we are so large and have so many "wide open spaces" (unpopulated or sparsely) populated), just don't do that. But geography is not the only reason. Americans seem to have a docility that I find incongruent with our origins as a nation.

Seems as though once the Revolutionary War ended, the people ceased making waves with government. I am not sure why. Wish I knew.

(The Depression and the Vietnam War were exceptions, but therer was even a remarkable amount of docility during the Depression.)