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Give people more time to invest in things they'll have to spend money on and they will spend more money? Who'd have thunk. Not gonna buy a boat for 10 vacatio
by bunnymancer 11y ago
Give people more time to invest in things they'll have to spend money on and they will spend more money?
Who'd have thunk.
Not gonna buy a boat for 10 vacation days total per year.. Why would I?
25 days on the other hand.. That's a solid three extra weeks of boating. Might buy a boat.
- sageabilly 11y agoThat's (surprisingly, to me) not the main point of the article- the point is that if more people take more vacation time then companies will have to hire more employees to ensure the same level of base coverage and voila job creation!
- vkou 11y agoA shorter working week would accomplish something similar. You can phase it in by mandating OT pay for hourly employees after 40h, then 35h, then 30h. Eventually, salaried jobs will catch up.
- briandear 11y agoHave we not learned anything from France? That was the exact same argument made for the 35 hour workweek and it had no positive effect on unemployment rates. It's a ridiculous idea. We have unemployment chronically above 10% both with a 35 hour week and generous vacation and leave.
- vkou 11y agoWould you have less unemployment with a 40 hour work week? An 80 hour work week?
- marcosdumay 11y agoI could imagine why that would be the case. The more important question is, how are similar countries that didn't adopt the 35 hour week doing?
- mikeyouse 11y agoWould it surprise you to learn that France has a much higher employed proportion of their population than the US? http://i.imgur.com/g9NA76s.png http://i.imgur.com/g9NA76s.png An extra 5% of working age employment in the US would mean something like 7M more jobs.
- briandear 11y agoWho pays for that vacation? France has very generous vacation and their economy is stagnant. They even have a 35 hour workweek established based in the same premise. It hasn't worked. The economy is growing less than under Sarkozy. We could also make the argument that cutting taxes would spur more spending. If you increase my disposable income, I'll buy some new studio monitors and an Allen & Heath mixer. Just increasing vacation time results in a higher labor cost and thus raises prices, negating the benefit.
- a_c_s 11y agoFrance's 'standard of living' (measured in material goods) is quite high globally-speaking and not significantly lower than that of the USA. If you include intangibles like quality healthcare and reasonable amounts of vacation time, then I'd argue that France is far wealthier than the US.
- SixSigma 11y agoThose simple minded fools with their 35 hour work week, healthcare, paternity leave and 30 days holiday ! Who are they fooling? Not me, I'm going to buy some expensive speakers
- jpapon 11y agoGermany also has very generous vacation, 12 months of paternity/maternity leave, etc... and their economy is doing just fine. I guarantee if you asked Americans if they would trade their 2.5% (or whatever) economic growth for Germany's 1% in exchange for 20 days guaranteed vacation per year, most would say "hell yes". The people who wouldn't take the trade are those rich enough to not need the vacation.
- s73v3r 11y agoIt has not been shown that higher labor costs raise prices a significant amount. During the debate over Seattle raising wages, it was shown that increased wages would add very little to the cost of fast food meals.
- wnevets 11y agoA better example could be more vacation should lower stress induced health problems, which could mean lower premiums and less money going into the black hole that is the US healthcare system.