Just to add a little more context, according to the BLS, average weekly hours in the private sector was 33.8 in 2007, for the US.

Besides which, nominal domestic wagerates are only one part of the competitiveness equation. Real exchange rates for instance are another, and there is no reason than movements in one couldn't offset movements in the other.

As someone who's managed technical people working in Europe, I can tell you from first hand experience that the 35 hour week didn't effect us - party because the law doesn't apply to IT jobs.

France's giant, stinking problem is that it's nearly impossible to fire anyone there - 2 years of serverence is required, as well as approval of government officials. Compared to the 35 hour workweek, the difference is so overwhelming that it's not clear you could even see a competitiveness impact, were you to try to determine it.

Interestingly, I've been told that the 35 hour workweek was implemented in part to make hiring more attractive, since it's so unattractive now given the severence policy.

Maybe I'm missing something. If France's unit costs for tradables had increased because of the workweek and this has translated into increased prices of French exports relative to imports resulting in a real appreciation, AND they essentially have a current account in balance, doesn't that mean their competitiveness has improved??

In other words, don't reductions in the real exchange rate (Francs per unit foreign currency adjusted for international and domestic prices) consistent with BOP equilibrium mean improving competitiveness?

Wouldn't the higher productivity rates offset the shorter work week?

Oh, my dear comrades, don't you know that, in the New York Times, the 35-hour work week is responsible for every ill from dry skin to global warming?

Firms also got subsidies in return for implementing the 35 hour week (and creating jobs). So "no loss of pay" is only part of the story. Also, wage growth has indeed been slow since then (actually this is partly responsible for French discontent over loss of purchasing power).

So, if it hasn't hurt France, maybe WE should try it! And while we're at it, we could lower it to a 25 hour work week or perhaps a 20 hour work week since none of this has any bearing on productivity.

Workers in all countries are urged to work harder and longer to maintain "competitiveness". As things are set up now, the economic benefits of this competition go to the wealthy and professional classes, as Dean points out, rather than to the workers of first-world countries. The ruling classes use nationalism to get workers to support policies against their own real interests. It's sometimes enough to make one turn to Marxism. And again nationalism (our rivalry with the Soviet Union and China) is used to discredit valid criticisms made by Marx and other anti-capitalists.

the severance policy followed in france is followed by other countries too

it makes the cost of firing a worker high

too high?

american managers with a "workers serve at the pleasure of the manager/companmy" don't like it

it makes the cost of firing a worker high

If you can fire them at all. Remember the riots in France over the new law allowing employers to fire unproductive workers UNDER THE AGE OF 25 ONLY.
Gee, no guaranteed job, no matter how worthless an employee you may be. What a shame...

I'd love to have a 35 hour week. But in today's tech world, 9-10 hours daily is expected. Then add in commute time of 1-2 hours daily. Yeah, maybe you get paid more in most tech jobs but when amortized over the expected work hours, the additional pay amount evaporates.

All together, extended work time + commuting time comes out of your personal or sleep time, leading to more stress and personal life dissatisfaction.

Jamzo:

You ask if those draconian severance policies are too high.

Well, they're too high for any American firm to consider hiring there when they can possibly hire elsewhere. Even Germany isn't as bad as France. Hell, even Italy's a better deal, and that's saying something. Fortunately for France, there are lots of smart people there, or things would be worse than they are.

Ask the teeming unemployed in the suburbs of France if it's too high. They'll tell you it isn't, as they wait for the dole.

I'm no free market business booster, but it's possible to go to far - and France went too far. For examples of more worker friendly policies that don't go to far, you only have to look as far as, say, Ireland. Their policies are considerably more worker friendly than the US, while still not strangling their economy. Too bad about that property bubble, though.

It's been clear to me for some years that the perception of French competitiveness is not based on exports or other metrics like unemployment (which has steadily fallen throughout this decade). What people really mean by competitiveness is how they compare in a beauty contest. It's perception and ideological preconceptions rather than reality guiding what people think.

The 35 hour work week sounded like a radical proposal but when the work week was effectively 37.5 hours before the reform, and when you count in exemptions to the work week, then it looks like very mild change indeed. I think the perception of lazy if not outright crazy French was magnified by American full-time workers getting used to working longer and longer hours (often without proper compensation, showing up as a misleading corporate productivity increase).

I commented on another BeatThePress entry a couple weeks ago, that "Europe Is Stagnating" is a persistent meme of the American press which they constantly try to prove by manhandling the facts. Here we see it again.

Hey El Viajero, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the length of work week really does not have any relationship to productivity at all.

I took a job in Mexico because I assumed from the stereotypes that it'd be less hours of work and less stress. My first job had a very strictly enforced 44-hour work week, my current job actually works 50 hours per week! Siesta?!? It's a thing of the past. Mexicans are the most workaholic people I know. The cleaning ladies in the office mop the floors continually: They start at one end of the office, and when they finish, they just start again at the beginning. They spend ten hours a day doing this backbreaking work because the companies periodically fire employees randomly just to keep everyone in line.

Yet all this backbreaking work and candle-burning hasn't put the Mexicans that much ahead, economically, than they were 10 years ago. The more time you're forced to sit at your desk, the more that bureaucratic forms, data organizing, and plain goofing-off fill up your day.

Sorry for the cliché, but in the 21st century, productivity gains come when you work smarter, _not_ harder or longer.

El viajero,

¿Por que no te callas una puta vez?

Ya hemos visto que no contribuyes nada al debate. Eres un pesado del infierno!!!

Wow, two years severance! In the states, it takes millions, sometimes hundreds of millions to get rid of an incompetent chief executive. You could fire hundreds of low level incompetents for that, two year severance and all.

Great idear thanks very much

Great idear thanks very much
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