The American Workday, By Profession 146
An anonymous reader writes NPR has created an interesting visualization of workday data from the American Time Survey. It shows what the typical working times are for each profession. You can see some interesting trends, like which professions distribute their work throughout the day (firefighters and police), which professions take their lunch breaks the most seriously (construction), and which professions reverse the typical trends (food service). "Still, Americans work more night and weekend hours than people in other advanced economies, according to Dan Hamermesh and Elena Stancanelli's forthcoming paper (PDF). They found that about 27 percent of Americans have worked between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at least once a week, compared with 19 percent in the U.K. and 13 percent in Germany."
"More advanced economies?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, Americans work more night and weekend hours than people in other advanced economies,
I believe the correct definition of an advanced economy is one which enables, empowers, and encourages a worker to be fully engaged and continuously productive at all hours of every day of the week, maximizing shareholder value and business agility while minimizing costs.
Question for the reader: Am I joking, trolling, or serious?
TFA bad at math? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the graph in TFA. Only 35% are still working by 5pm. By contrast, 45% are working by 7:30am. So...why isn't the "standard workday" the 45%-to-45% mark of 7:30-4:30?
Re:9 to 5 is a myth (Score:3, Insightful)
You want in on 28 days of paid holiday, paid sick leave, paid maternity and paternity leave and 35-hour weeks? As a culture you might try to get over your fear of the word 'socialism' :)
coordinated work (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of construction work is only safe to do when the crew is working together. You can't have people single-lifting things that require team lifting. You can't have a truck, pallet jack, front loader, paver, or crane operator running heavy equipment in confined areas without spotters and such. A roofer needs nails and shingles brought up to be efficient. Getting to lunch at the same time is good safety and good business. It's not just a union thing.
Re:Seems good to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're only open the hours I'm at work, I'm not going to shop at your store.
This is my problem, too. The problem is that companies not only expect you to to work late into the evening "when necessary", meaning on days that end in "y", but they also expect that the fact that you worked a 20 hour shift on Monday does not mean you can come in late on Tuesday, and you certainly cannot expect to be allowed to take a half hour to go run some errands during the day, unless you are willing to give up your lunch hour to run those errands instead of maintaining your health so that you can be a more productive employee.
Re:9 to 5 is a myth (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah yes, it's all {the other group}, not {my group}. I'm afraid this isn't quite true. American culture as a whole is suspicious of socialism. The Republicans are actively trying maintain this position as they can use it to gain votes. Don't delude yourselves that Democrats are anything other than right wing capitalists just because they are left of the Republicans socially. The issue isn't just a broken political system and corruption but also your Overton window.
Re:Seems good to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
And unions are bad again... why?
(making a generalization - I don't know if tompaulco has ever said anything about unions or not.) Many posters comment on this extreme power dynamic differential that they are at the short end of, but then no one seems to be in favor of unions. Not saying unions aren't without their problems, but the simple fact is the only thing that can effectively fight organized bureaucracy & greed (like management) is ... more organized bureaucracy & greed (in the form of unions).
My $0.02, anyway...
Re:Seems good to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seems good to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I see unions like judges -- as a foundation of a democratic society.
They can both be corrupted by money, be involved in organized crime, but can also make a tremendous difference in the lives of thousands by Doing Their Job (TM). Removing judges causes anarchy (the problem they were designed to fix) and removing unions concentrates wealth in the hands of a few non-working people (the problem they were designed to fix). If we look around, union membership is at an all-time low and we have wage stagnation. Coincidence [epi.org]? In countries with higher union participation, you also see benefits like mandatory paid vacation, wage growth, and single payer healthcare.
People can argue whether or not union Foo is good or bad (just as we can with a given judge), but unions themselves are a necessary tool in combating the abuse of people by those in corporate governance through elections.