Are Americans too lazy?

I do not agree,I am freelancer from non-us city & 70% of my clients are from US & they work with me as much as I work , sometimes we work 16 hours a day but 10-12 hours a day is our regular routine…

- Accountant
http://www.banktransfers.co.uk

I totally disagree. Other countries like India end up working longer hours, but then it’s expected that there will be lots of talking around the water cooler and personal chats throughout the day. I say keep it the same and work harder!

I’d say the working time and lazyness aren’t always straight proportional. If you coerce everyone to work longer, I’d say people won’t be any less lazy. It needs to motivate people so that they work with more enthusiasm. That could lead to a longer working time, but needn’t.

Vincent

I think in today’s world we don’t work as hard as we used to. The reason I think this is, is technology.

In the old days ( like the miner days ) you could call it hard work, working 14 hours a day with shovels and picks, now that hard work. Compare that to what you do for a living and ask your self, could I do that?

Want me to work more hours than I already do. Here’s an idea. Stop taxing my overtime!!! Sure I get more take home pay when I work more hours but when you considder time and a half, Uncle Sam gets the time, I get the half. Why can’t the regressive income tax apply to me as well as the boss? It’s a huge double standard that reduces my incentive to produce more just as it does with anyone else.

Not productive enough? I should speculate that large multinational corporations would rather that our children work since the labor of two in a household doesn’t seem to adequately replace what was the duty of one. Our productions are up 40 percent since the 1970’s and yet our purchase power is under fire.

What a failure in the promise of technology! Why can’t the added stock that advancements in technology pave the way for a more relaxed society? We should all be working less and letting the difference to be made up for with technology instead of the other way arround. I cannot think of another reason for this failure than for the simple pleasure of greed.

The issue is in the fabled quest for growth instead of sustainability. World planners should revisit the works of Adam Smith to realize that their deviations from sound theory have dilluted their minds into believing that this system is bound for anything less than collaps.

I can’t speak for all of america, but in my profession, Advertising, I work from 8am to 12am nearly 4 days a week and two other days a week I get it easy. 8 to 6. (yes the gives me one day a week to do my laundry and clean house etc… So, maybe there are some extreeme slackers out there that prefer to live off of other peoples dollar, but not this guy! I work hard for what I have.

You all should know what the word “Average” means, any way you may listen to employers at factories, farms, construction, restaurants, etc. I’m struggling every day with the expensive lazy and stupid, drug users, delinquents, psychos, etc. Finding good hard workers is becoming more and more difficult, Do you know how we can stay in business with out illegals ?? and is not about wages, believe me, Why would you blame me if I rather close and move across the boarder, plenty of hard workers, and away of this over-regulated system.

I think they need to work smarter not harder. The US put a man on the moon. Now they cant even get a space shuttle to land properly.

I really would have to agree with Douglas Prindle. Americans really work much harder than any other nation out there. The average workday is not 9-5, it’s 8-6 already. Furthermore, entry level jobs these days at the top firms and the fastest growing job sectors like media all requirement long hours and people work until 2 am in finance.

David Jang

Sorry Crawford, but you’re dead wrong. Yes, the economy is allegedly lagging, but to say its because Americans are lazy is ignorance. Look at Japan. Look at Germany. Look at France. 3 of the World’s largest and most successful economies and they work literally almost half as much as Americans.

Further, your “research” is breaking down labor across the entire population. Remove the retirees and you have a completely different picture. A picture that would show that Americans work more than any other developed nation. By FAR. Not even close.

Its easy to skew any type of “scientific” research to paint a picture of doom and gloom. Frankly, America knows it. At least the vast majority of us do. And I think were pretty sick of journalistic hacks sensationalizing issues with misinformation.

Blame it on American workers whose jobs are getting outsourced to China and India leaving the remaining workers stretched thin and yet never question the fact that the average CEO earns 300 times the average worker and pays less taxes and was the chief beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts.
The Bush administration and their ilk are making trillions of dollars and experiencing boom times from record high oil prices, military buildup from
Bush’s Iraq war which has generated hundreds of billions in no bid contracts and corruption and lack of accountability.
Great article–it is the American workers lazy ways that is the cause of all this. Workers should 1) Work more 2) Get paid less 3) Give up their benefits for the good of the stock options of their masters and 4) Most importantly, stop complaining and remain apathetic. Anyone who voted for Bush and is not part of the richest 1% gets what they deserve.

Yes!Most of Americans are fat lazy and stupid.Stumbling through life,in a catotonic state of confusion.

I see this as true fact. I am a System Administrator earning really good money and still do work only 25hrs/week where I should do 40+. This is allowed as other groups within the institution do the same and thus, no one dares speaks of it. Also, I lived in Peru and the work-load there is unbelievable. The standards to keep your job is very high which a day of work would be minimun 70hrs/week. I am sad now… I will work more from now on…

At the end of the day what is more important - the quality or quantity of hours worked? I agree that many Americans are lazy. However, many are not. In the case of those hardworking Americans - they should continue converting jobs that previously ran with special focus on production to a focus on management and services. Instead of working our fingers to the bone lets find jobs that manage the others or don’t directly compete with ridiculous work hours. On behalf of the jobs that are still focusing on production - think quality not quantity. The hand of the diligent will rule. But the lazy man will be put to forced labor. 20:12:24

Please post a list of the good paying jobs with 40 hour work weeks. I routinely work 50 to 52 and cannot get it done. Understaffing is the norm at the last two jobs I have had. So have no or 3% annual raises. And these are “professional” positions. So please, give us the list.

What he’s saying is Americans refuse to work for dirt cheap wages like other contries so that the filthy greedy rich can be greedier. Plain and simple pay us better or you can join us in the unemployment line. You outsource all the decent paying jobs oversea’s or corrupt our economy with cheap import’s. Maybe you missed it but with out good paying jobs we are not going to buy stuff. You can make us poorer but then in turn we will make you the rich greedy poorer. As for me my focus is on my family not your business.

It’s interesting to me that an article calling Americans lazy should appear in a rich man’s magazine. Please don’t buy Geoff Colvin’s propaganda. Did you know there is no law in America to protect your vacation time? Please join me in supporting “Take Back Your Time,” a joint US/Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork. http://timeday.org/

Agree with some other comments about working after hours via email, blackberry, etc. Also, what has changed from previous generations is the excessive time required after hours raising children, specifically, time required to help with the overswhelming volume of homework now required in most schools. When my wife and I started to school in 1965, most learning was assumed to be accomplished at school and only occasional help at home was required. Now, it seems as if every parent I know spends several hours a night, after working a full day, helping their children with homework (really amounts to homeschooling). Parents these days are getting very “squeezed”, time and energy-wise, as both are usually working (unlike previous generations), demands for raising children are more than ever, and they may be caring for elderly parents, who are living longer than ever. For most parents, I don’t believe there is any “extra” time available to put in at work, given other non-work demands and expectations.

Yes we have become a very lazy country.We want everything in a hurry and in some cases will do almost anything to get something for nothing.I beleive this nation will almost collapse by July, 31, 2008.

Did anyone in this study take into account how many people are forced to work less hours than 40 because their employers are simply not willing to pay any overtime and more and more of employers are relying on temp and part time employment? This would bring the working hours average down considerably.
Also there is a concern with lack of motivation in the workplace, who wants to work for less than they made last year and the year before that? I know of several people who have earned less everyyear for the last 3 years and this is simply not acceptable to an employee whos expecting pay to rise with experienece.

The underlining cause behind many of the problems your seeing today are caused by corporate greed, NOT from the citizen. Wake up people!!!

Geoff is just trying to get more money for himself by trying to make american workers look bad. He needs to get that next union contract pay raise down. The reality is, American workers are more PRODUCTIVE than any in the world, by far. That is what really counts. He should come to my cement plant and work a few shifts, I can put him with some guys who can lose 5-10 pounds a day. The work can be brutal not just hard. He is living in a rosey wonderful world, and just has no clue what hard work even is, that is my guess. Maybe when he caddied at the golf club as kid, that was the only time he ever sweated.

I am a baby boomer. I have worked the hours. I am now looking at a retirement with stress driven medical problems. Yea, work more hours and harder. No wonder our medical costs are so high. The Japanese have a special work for the results of working the long hours and dieing early. I would put it into this response but due to information over load I no longer have it in memory.
I have children in the “new generation”. One is part of a 2-income family (due to out sourcing). There are 4 children in the family. One is the head of a single income family with 3 children. He is working as a contract designer and is living just above poverty. The third is still in school (back in school at 30) because with a science degree (major) and an engineering minor and no experience she could not get a job

Broad generalizations are seldom true.
What’s the point of working more hours anyway? Isn’t working less one of the primary reasons humans organized themselves into civilizations? Just think if we had to grow our own food, make our own clothes, build our own homes, find our own sources of energy…there would not be enough hours in a day to work.

My goal is to have enough invested such that the only work I’ll NEED to do is manage my investments. If I only want to do that for 3-4 hours per day, then that will be fine with me.

I do not beleive Americans are lazy. I beleive our CEO’s just want more in their pockets, and want us to work for less. When we refuse jobs at a low wage they say “Americans don’t work hard enough, and only the illegals will do these jobs”.

I’m not really sure how we as readers can take this article seriously. Not a single mention of “productivity”. Taking a single statistic out of context and using it to hype a baseless hypothesis that Americans are lazy . . . this is not journalism.

Let us not forget this is America and we are not lazy! What is occurring in the ‘land of the free’ is everyone that is coming here, are coming here to work and to improve their way of life. In other words, they live to work, most Americans (those legally born here) work to live. Most foreigners here in the U.S. are playing catch-up, therefore working so hard to support their families here in the U.S. and in their native homeland. So, what appears to be hard work to most, is really, modern day self-enslavement, which is a representation of the culture they originally came from.

I have a graduate degree and I have worked for 3 different Fortune 100 companies; in addition to a bunch of small ones. My experiences, here in Austin, are 180 degrees different than Mr. Colvin’s analysis. Real earnings go down each year; due to healthcare, but also due to employers making a higher percentage of an employee’s pay discretionary. Also, I am have no idea how Mr. Colvin was able to substantiate his claim of hours/week declining, but my peers all fear the consequences of working less than 55 hours / week, not showing enough night and weekend “face time” and being bold enough to take all of your 2 weeks of vacation at once. I would like to see some data from writers that did some “frontline” research at the top 100 companies.

It is amazing how hard someone will work just to feed their families or own their first home. Even if it means the whole family working for way less than minimum wage…

This article is totally biased and superficial. I worked for years in different companies in one of the 3rd World nations mentioned here, Mexico, and yes, they usually spend far more hours in their jobs than Americans. 48 hours a week spent in the job is the minimun down there; it is very badly regarded to leave the office, factory or store at the very ending hours. Overtime is always expected. But as for work my very high guess is 40 hours.

This columnist did not care enough on what the Mexican employees do with all those extra thousand hours. By “enough” I mean “enough to make fair comparisons”. Do you think they can’t work more because their outdated technologies, unskilled staff, incompetent governments, bad infrastructure, etc? Yes, those problems do happen, but they usually do have good computers just like in US. As for incompetent governments, the European ones are plain bad as well very often. By far and large, these employees plain waste time chatting, gossiping, flirting, eating, laughing all loud, etc. This is also why they are usually terribly trained and this creates a chain reaction because they not only wste time in the very moment they waste it. they also waste future time. After gossiping or eating burritos and tamales, they didn’t get good training and later they waste hours and hours trying to do works that should be routinar duties. Yet, those works are daily problems to solve that are never quite figured out.

These situations must happen in the rest of the 3rd World, just like Peru or China. At least it’s certaind that this happens in the rest of Latin America because their culture is the same as in Mexico: excessive chat and gossip, and lack of practicallity, amongst many others.

Reading this article shows again, that a lot of people in the USA think, working more will be more productive and more profitable.
I don’t agree with it. The USA is a working class country who works for a living and never knew how to enjoy there live after work.
Let’s face it. A lot of Americans cannot live only with one job. Husband and Wife have to work in order to keep a standard of living which is for example in Europe standard without having both working tremendous over hours. In Fact the majority in the USA is living from pay check to pay check even though working up to 50 hours or more a week. What is wrong with that picture? And know we have to read that Americans are too lazy? I don’t believe there is any more room for more work with out sacrificing complete your private life.
I grew up In Germany a country which has a great heath system, word class products and industries. There aren’t a lot of countries in the world who has such high standards in there economy and you can be assured that the average German Employee doesn’t work more the 40 hours a week, neither weekends and has at least 4 weeks vacation from the very beginning.
The productivity and quality is not getting better, due to working more and more hours. Sometimes people need a rest to be more focused in order to make a difference in the world’s economy and to be more competitive.

I have problems with someone who undoubtably took about 3 hours to write this drivel calling anyone, “lazy”.

I agree that Americans are not working as hard as we should have been. Last year, I went to a computer store to fix my laptop. The person working there charged me $100 and told me my laptop could not be fixed because the mother board is damaged. Last year, I visted China and took the laptop with me trying to fix it in China. (the reason I wanted to have it fixed in China is that I don’t believe the mother board is damaged.) Fortunately, I spent $5 have it fixed in China. What do you guys think?

it seems that whenever economic woes are discussed, the blame is always pointed at the non-management working class of America. Has it ever occurred to Geoff that workers only do what “management or “leadership” tell them to do? And, what does he have to say about the ever increasing rapacious appetites of executives who reap multi-millions of dollars in compensation each year despite poor, if not mediocre, performance?

I’m 30yrs. old and i work over 50hrs. a week in a maint. dept. for a truss company. I also have to drive and hour each way because there are no other good jobs in the area i live in. So that’s over sixty hours involved in work. Then i have to work on my house when i get home for about two hours a day because i can’t afford to pay someone to do it for me. I work around 80% mexicans who take jobs from americans for a cheaper wage just to send it all back home to mexico. Meanwhile companies like Delphi as an example move to Mexico to pay even less. I wonder why unemployment is getting worse.

Everyone I know works much more than 40 hrs. week. There are some areas of the country that have high unemployment and people work as many hours as their employer allows them.

I think Geoff Colvin has misunderstood the statistics he is using.

As a retiree I see a trend as I continue to work. I do not see Americans as being lazy, but I do see a lot of leading corporate businesses working employees less than forty hours in order to escape paying benefits that a full time employee would receive.

FIGURE’S.
Most if not all poll’s are operating on the same type of non principle.

If corporations would control the working class in America,and enslave them as they had their forefathers,they must steal their laborer and convince them the problem, is their doing, not us kind and gentle hearted, corporate lazy fat rich over paid, ceo and what ever, like the Carlyle gang,
Thinking themselves to be wise they became fools.
Dare you to post, A LITTLE TRUTH.

Universaly,… Media, Publicy, and Politicaly, we all agree; the best generation of Americans were working and living in the “30’s to 50’s. We have became a “bleeding heart” country. We believe 4 fire-fighters should risk their lives to save a PUPPY! We are not LAZY, we are mislead!!! We are living the direct result of, ” I want my children to have a better life than I did”. That worked fine until about three generations ago. Now we are doomed, because we have progressively spoiled our children.

American productivity, actual output verus labor input is a real measure of economic productivity and America leads the pack. This comparison is bogus.

Can we say Propaganda… This is exact information that produces misinformation not only in the states but outside the states. Of family and friends in and outsides the states are the more typical worker averaging more around 50 hours a week. But then again the report he used he must have subtracted the off pay working hours like some on here have posted talking to bosses are bringing work home to finish after work. Even with the young workers they are working more hours than ever before. This report is also a catalyist to try to fight groups trying to get American pay more to the cost of living increases. Government own statisic is the yearly raise is roughly under 1% while the Cost of living is around 30%. So workers work more and their money pays for less. The sad part is when the corporate is forced to pay a survival wage (less than living wage) they are moving the jobs overseas where they can pay a lot less and find it easier to take advantage of the workers. But they must be forwarned as you eliminate those jobs to make larger profits you end up losing in the long run because less and less can afford many of those products so you have to eventually lower price which decreases profit. Look to the other financial areas they are feeling a large pinch and it will only get worst even with the lowering of the Interest rate by the Federal Government.

Yup, that is the way to lead a world, follow
what the poorer countries are doing. Good grief
your article was WAY off the mark! Let’s all go back
to a time where workers were treated and paid like slaves as they
are in the countires you mention.
Yup, lets work ourselves so hard we have no life. After all
isn’t that what Americans were taught to believee - live to work.
Most civilized countires like Norway and Switzerland and now the US
have come to realize that the truly human
and healtly way to live is to work to live
not vise versa.

This American will not be on their death bed thinking
wow, I did a great job at my job!

I will be thinking about all the wonderful experiences I
had on my time off.

Sound like a bunch of B.S. to me.
I had a lot more leisure in the seventies than I have now.

I have not seen all this time off that is alluded to here. Let’s not forget that Europeans have much more vacation time than the typical American. However, there is one group that is over-pampered, overpaid, over-perked, over-pensioned and underworked. Naturally I refer to the biggest parasites in the world - teachers. In this part of the country a great percentage of them “earn” near, at and over $100K per year. Considering that they “work” about 1000 hours per year (do the math), that’s $100.00 per hour plus benefits which brings their total compensation to $130-$140 per hour!

I think many of us have long believed the end result of Globalism was going to be a redistribution of wealth away from many Americans to those of citizens from other lands. And I appreciate Geoff Colvin’s finally coming clean about that conclusion in his Fortune Magazine article. I suppose, if you’re an altruist, you’ve got to believe it good we would be willing to sacrifice our former privileged status and relinquish our wealth that those less fortunate may prosper in our place.

I agree with Colvin that wages for average Americans will continue to decline while the cost of goods will rise as foreigners continue to demand more of our wealth. Obviously, this will mean we’ll have to work longer hours with fewer benefits, just to survive. Despite Colvin’s denial, we see it happening already, of course. I knew no one who worked two jobs back in 1965. Now, I know many. He’s simply making use of the fact that a higher proportion of us are retired, now, to contrive his statistics as he did. And we’ll be seeing more such deception in the future as corporations hire writers to sell us on our own demise.

Still, he came closer than I’ve ever seen to revealing the truth of the devastation Globalism will have done to the America we knew, when its dirty work is done. Seems to me, in the 1700’s, we led the world toward a new way of freedom and respect for each and every individual. Now we’re seeking to move back to mindless, Egyptian times when slaves worked ceaselessly so a privileged few could enjoy lives of leisure.

The only defense I see for retaining some of what we once had, is to imitate more advanced, free nations to tax the heck out of our privileged few. They’re not afraid of 90 to 95% tax rates for billionaires in Europe and Canada. Is it no wonder we never see their representatives on our Sunday morning press shows? They’re likely afraid of their influence. If we would wish to have the benefits that accompany free nations, we’d better get back on track and stop buying all the propaganda we’re hearing on corporate controlled news channels these days.

I swear, we’ve got college graduates, galore, running throughout the land and yet, high school grads of thirty years ago seemed to perceive what was going on much better than we. They saw an adversarial system coming at them from above and they weren’t afraid to take it on. I’m sure their skeptical, challenging spirits still exist in a dusty closet, somewhere. If we could but dare shake off the cobwebs and set the mothballs aside, I think we could dress ourselves accordingly to win back some of what we’ve lost.

Come on America. Stop buying all the corporate propaganda BS you’re hearing. What good are those corporations doing most of us, anyway? Their factories are overseas and as Colvin pointed out, the cost of their goods will soon be rapidly on the rise, too. And, then, what will you have but the drudgery of an endless, tedious life . . . other than Colvin’s praise, of course?

Wise up and start looking out for yourselves instead of the billionaires Rush, Sean, and Fox are pushing you to shed tears for. Tax ‘em. And tax ‘em high. Oh, and you might ask, too, why we only charge a 2.5% tariff on Chinese imports while they charge a 25% tariff on our goods entering their nation. How many such examples are there? And aren’t our politicians supposed to be looking out for us? Is fair play too much to ask? Or does working to death sound like a more appealing option?

Corporate representatives play hardball in spreading influence. And they’ve been quite successful. I only learned this year that people, even working people, who thought they had insurance, and children, too, are dying for lack of health care in this putative, great land. I mean, they’re just not treated and are sent home to die. Don’t think for a moment those in power won’t happily see you expire in dire poverty, having lost Social Security and Medicare, too. It’ll mean more money in their pockets. I can only say, if you continue to buy their despicable nonsense, without fighting back, you deserve the end yet to be. But I hope it doesn’t come to that.

your facts and figures are just plain wrong. america is the most prosperous nation in the history of the world and this prosperity is available to all and shared by most. if americans were “lazy” this would not be possible. in fact just the opposite is true americans as a whole are the hardest working most productive and innovative people in the world.

This is overwhelmingly stupid.
1965 - one income per household and family farms. Home values equal to two years salary. Job secuity.
2007 - two/three incomes per household no family farms. Home values equal to 7-10 years salary. No job security.
Corp. downsizing to part time positions.

Yes it appears our youth has decided it isn’t worth the effort. They have grown up in an era of greed and corruption in political and corp. America. People are working harder for much less. May the Clintons and Bushes reap what they have sown for us.

I think it is all the fat rich slobs that are making money off our backs that work 24/7

Certanly Americans are working less! That’s because corporate America has been allowed and compensated to move our jobs out of our country, hire illegal imigrants to take many jobs that were left and manipulate the wages and benifits of the “AMERICANS”, still fortunate to have a job. We’ve traveled abroad-no place on earth are there people willing to work as hard as “AMERICANS”. Thanks for even suggesting that “AMERICANS” are lazy. Our “AMERICAN CULTURE” and life style/ quality of life for the masses of middle glass “AMERICANS” has suffered dramaticly as a result of NAFTA and the “World Economy Program”. Shame on you for suggesing such an untruth.

WE’RE REALLY TOO BUSY WITH OUR WORK TO BE LAZY. MOST PEOPLE I KNOW HAVE BOTH SPOUSES WORKING, TRAVELLING THROUGH NASTY TRFFIC, & TRYING TO JUGGLE THEIR LIVES TO BETTER THEMSELVES & THEIR CHILDREN.
THESE SO CALLED SURVEYS ARE TOO PHONEY!

I beleive AMERICAN”s (CONTRA TO WHAT EVERYONE IS SAYING) are still very hard working,take care of their children and business,and then they relax on their sofa. I beleive that when someone is saying American’s are lazy and do not produce this is a propaganda that makes someone feel happy at AMERICAN’S EXPENSE.The truth is Americans are working even harder to keep up the world trade workers, who mostly work for indentured wages. I beleive that they are importing their indentured low wages to AMERICA RIGHT NOW and it is not from our close neighbors,as some would have you to think. If you don’t beleive this check in various places of business where they once were high wages. We have in America right now college gradutes being fired and can’t get any job other than working for 6-8 dollers in a lot of areas an hour. Make a survey on the survey of unemployment. I not a Greenspan as u can see from my typing (bearly High School:)) at this rate we will have no free time to be (PLUMP)(tounge in cheek), and injoy our free time off. I suspect the world would still like to be AMERICANS WHO THEY PRETEND ARE SO LAZY,non producing, couch potato. SINCERLY FROM A PROUD retired (couch potato)AMERICAN. Ann Ogas

Plain greed has put this country where it is at today. I recall a produce clerk being hired into a Kroger Supermarket in 1970 at a rate of close to $10.00 per hour. A new Chevy Caprice in that year was in the $5500.00 dollar range. Over thirty years later the Caprice is now in the 25,000.00 range and the same clerk position is hiring in at 7.50 per hour. Thats over 30 years later people!! Greed on who’s end? I think not the clerks.

We have always been accused of being so lazy! No — I do not think we are so lazy. I see a lot of wonderful hard working people — both young and old. This charge of being lazy will never change. Too bad!!

I think your research is wrong about laziness. The labor market has changed drastically, especially in the last six years. We’ve gone through a serious paradign shift because of “free trade agreements.” Many high and mid-level skilled jobs are now located overseas such as: Maytag, Fruit of the Loom, shoe companies, Levy Straus, and what was more American than RADIO FLYER now in Mexico, and too many others to mention. Where are the livable wage jobs that onces gave us an incentive work long and hard hours? Just like Ross Perot Said back in 1992 about NAFTA and what it means to the US labor market: “We will become a nation of delivering pizzas to one another.” WOW! What a proit! Sad but true, indeed. Of course, foreigner workers now working these factories that used to be ours are working harder in terms of more hours in these countries. You would be too if you were makinng $.30 and hour. I love Lou Dobbs he’s the man that has been the voice of the working class for US citizes when no one else would listen in the last several years.
Susan Krieger

I was told to learn to work smarter NOT HARDER! Now that I’ve learned to work smarter you think I should get paid less for producing more. Productivity was growing constantly under Greenspan’s watch. So now under Bernacke’s I have all of a sudden become dumber and all my encouraged “work smarter not harder” my corporate mantra the last 20 years is wrong? Take a flying . . . @ a roll’n donut!!

LAZY?, maybe, maybe not. Too high sense of entitlement, spoiled? Definitely YES!

Geoff Colvin compares statistics from 1965. In 1965 there was no email, cell phones, blackberries, fast computers, virtual conferences, and so much more. Is it possible to work smarter and more efficent in order to save time?

What was not included in the study is that in the overall picture Americans may work fewer hours per week but we have less vacation days than almost all industrialized countries in the world. And to compare an American worker to a Chinese worker is absurd– they’re living under Communist rule shrouded in the auspices of capitalism. They’ve got no choice BUT to work on Sunday.

To a certain degree yes, we “yanks” are a bit lazy! But with everyone losing pay & not to mention loss of pension’s at an alarming rate! Why would anybody want to kill themselves for a greedy boss?? (esp the airline business). Another thing, when talking about the world’s worker’s, why is it alway’s refering to the 9 to 5 crowd??? What about the rest of the worker’s around the world (including the U.S.) who work nights, weekends and all holiday’s….what about them?

YES Americans are lazy! Work ethics gone, You work for the brand (USA)gone. loyalty, honor,dedication, etc gone! Everyone wants everything free, Healthcare, Money, etc. Mexicans and all immogrants taking all areas of jobs to include farm, unwanted hard work jobs. We are becomming a third world country!

This article makes little sense and I highly doubt the data that it’s based on.

I know how much I work as well as 100’s of people I have met and related to … VAST majority of them work their tails off! On top of which, US workers get NOWHERE NEAR the vacation time that other “developed” countries get.

This report is actually insulting, and if anything, it makes me think that it’s reverse psychology … as in “we’ll tell them they don’t work hard enough, so we can squeeze even more out of them to pay the Exec’s ridiculous salaries, stock grants, etc, etc.”

GAHHHH First a report is published online touting the USA as the most hard working of all countries with more overtime hours per week than any other developed nation. Now we are the laziest country. You can prove anything you want by warping statistics. Does any of this really matter??????

I am a grade school teacher and I certainly do not feel like I have it easy..Between teaching 35 5th grade school children..making sure that parents follow-up on checking homework and making lesson plans and grading papers..and because my pay is not on the same level of professionals, I have to have a second job.
Yeah most students think school is hard
on not meaningful..try to take that idea and cash it at the bank!
Most of my students think that their parents will take care of them..
Too late America when will you see the need to pay your teachers more for the work that they do!

So much for Fortune Magazine being relevant.

In 1965 the USA had no competition, because no other country could crank out more fresh patented ideas, products and processes than the US. The world marveled at what the Americans could produce and US workers felt a personal connection with their work. There were no bidding wars, just worldwide consumers demanding the goods you produced. Can you imagine not having a wash machine, car, phone, microwave or a refrigerator? The US worker transformed ideas into products to better the lives of people across the world.

Today, countries like China, India and Japan only succeed by improving products or processes, previously engineered by US workers. Can you name one product, other than gun powder, that these countries produced? Take almost any product and most likely the invention came from the US. Then these ideas were learned by our universities, which in turn were transferred to their students, which in turn went back to their country and started business to compete with the US firm that thought of the idea in the first place. The difference however is that the non-US businessperson is willing to work for less, produce more and is not subject to the same cost structure as the US (i.e. work conditions, taxes, environmental regs, labor laws, retirement benefits). Also, without laws such as patents, anyone can produce what you designed and not have to spend all of that R&D money. What a concept.

We’re not getting lazier, just more frustrated at our leaders and institutions for upping the ante to play. Let’s see I get to pay social security until I retire, but then when I retire the funds will be spent, so ask me again why I am not motivated to work more than 50 hours a week?

I would like to see a chart or table that will compare and contrast the number of holidays each country has. I know that my company only gives us 8 Holidays. I do have my personal days (7) and vacation (15 after reaching the 5 years of service goal) to add to that. What do they have in other countries? Canada, Uinited Kingdon, India, etc.

We should also be careful to find out what if any countries have FALSE labor standards because you are forced to work your job for face penalties.

Now I feel that in America there is an apathy the company no longer cares for the employees like they did back in the 60’s and you have the threat of your job going outsourced so why should the employee care.

Here is a thought for eerybody. *IF* the executives do not wake up and notice that they outsource folks, and then turn a profit and in turn take a HUGE raise and bounus for making the company profitable we will most certainly soon have riots to rival past worker revolts. Do we know our history and know of what was called the Haymarket Riots? It is my fear that we may see that happen again, but this time in my lifetime. It is time for for everybody to wake up and smell the danger that we are heading for so that we do not repeat it.

just my few thoughts.

Welcome to Wall Street. 8 to 6 would be a short day for those of us already working these hours, which is why the US Financial industry is the strongest in the world. It’s about time the rest of America catches up with us.

I don’t agree with this article at all—According to the author Americans should just “accept” the fact that their jobs will simply pay less because they’re now competing with nearly 6 billion people. In not so many words, the author is telling us that free trade (trade without tariffs) will invariably lead us “American paid workers” to a continual lower standard of living. It really doesn’t matter how hard (or long) any American works. There are simply too many people on this planet willing to work for a lot less. So, it seems many of us “overpaid” workers will simply have to accept a future where everyone (not the wealthy investor class of course!) makes a low rate of pay. With all the politicians and CEOs lauding the positive affects of globalization on the US, one has to wonder why they forgot to mention that Americans will have to compete with dollar an hour workers (Which I’m sure was a mistake!). Here’s to selling out your country, and its people, down the river.

Interesting article - which sadly for the publication does not meld with fact.

At (huge telecom company) we literally have to FORCE our managers to take their vacations - and the average manager RETURNS 4 days (out of the 10 granted for this purpose) to Accounting (without compensation - other than those in California).

While who works hard is difficult to determine here, the AVERAGE log-on time per week per manager is 57 hours - 12 of which occur on weekends. Either they are working or faking it.

One set of examples, perhaps, but I must view the “conclusions,” of this piece with suspicion.

Irresponsible comments from a corporate “leader”.Arrogant, with a flair of superiority are not admirable qualities.A baseline these countries are not,and it is a nasty, ignorant dig from Jeff Immelt.

I totally disagree. The greed factor is in place now, American people are in fear of losing their job to low cost areas. They are seeing their co-workers get laid off or fired every other day. They know their time is probably limited unless something changes. They also know that they cannot go grocery shopping with the same pay as foriegn workers let alone pay for their gas and other general bills.
Talk like this is just to confuse people and not inform them about what the real problem is. There are great hard working people in America sitting at home right now that cannot find work, when you find the fix to that problem then you can talk about lazy Americans. Until tehn do not buy into this kind of talk. It’s all hot air to avoid the real problem.

Americans are not slackers, at least those of us on the lower end of the pay scale aren’t! Maybe the fat cats are getting time off or taking it easier, but factory workers, nurses, cops, service industry employees, etc. are working harder than ever.

Only the loyal bushies would try and say we are slackers. They are trying to make us not think we are working hard enough. We are working hard enough and now it is time for them to share the fruits of our labor with us!

Time is the new luxury item. The new metric. I don’t know that I want to play the same game China is playing. They have devalued people because there are so many. If we spend less time buying and watching TV and more time actually using our leisure time to think, read, experience other people, and find time to help our fellow human being then we are rich beyong measure. We won’t need cheap junk at Wal Mart to feel wealthy.

Geoff:

Go screw yourself.

THIS WHOLE THING STARTED WITH CHANGING OUR CONSTITUTION. THE US BUDGET USE TO HAVE TO BALANCED EVERY YEAR, LIKE OUR STATES DO. THAT GOT CHANGED AND THE GOVERNMENT BORROWED TO CREATE A BETTER ECONOMY. MORE MONEY FLOW INTO THE COUNTRY. THAT WHOLE CYCLE THEN BECAME INFLATIONARY. SO IT’S A NEVER ENDING CYCLE. EARN MORE, WORK LESS, SPEND MORE, LIVE BETTER, INFLATION. THE BUYING POWER OF YOUR AFTER TAX DOLLAR IS LESS AND LESS.
THAT CLEAN DOLLAR THAT YOU ALREADY PAID INCOME TAX ON, IS HEAVELY TAXED AGAIN EVERY TIME YOU BUY.
GRADUALLY WE NEED TO REINFORCE INDIVIDUAL SAVINGS IN ORDER TO CREATE A SOUND INDIVUAL ECONOMY, THIS AS WELL NEEDS TO BE DONE BY THE GOVERNMENT.
OR ELSE THE CRAZY ECONOMIC CYCLE WOULD CONTINUE ON AND ON, AND THIS IS THE INHERITANCE WE ARE CREATING FOR OUR CHILDREN, WHO WILL CONTINUE TO DO WHAT WE ARE DOING.

I don’t think Americans are too lazy. Especially, not those from the younger generation. I am 25 years old and work 70+ hours a week. My peers do the same. We are in an ultra fast paced environment and we know that to compete on the global scale we need to work hard and think creatively. I think it is common place for those who are older to think that the young are lazy, immoral, etc. A stereotype, in my opinion, that is completely false. Hillary Clinton had once said the same but was quickly confronted by her very educated and hardworking twenty something daughter, Chelsea. One needs to keep in mind that although we may not have ‘clocked in’ as many hours, more and more are bringing work home and on the extra weeks of vacation time that we supposedly have. There is no more ‘leisure time’.

The reason America is losing its edge because the lack of education and opportunity. We are behind in almost every subject, especially math and science. For those who are lucky to live in a well funded school district, it is fine but for the general population the funds are simply not there to pay for supplies, upgrade the facilities or pay for teacher’s salaries. If we pay teachers like the professionals that they are, I bet that you will get an influx of talented people who are willing to educate the young. And those who receive a better education can likewise turn around and become more productive members of society. The problem is that we are no longer investing in to our future, our children. Scholarships, grants and fellowships are hard to come by. Instead the young is burdened with thousands of dollars in loans. We cannot count on having decent health care or a pension and is destined to live in a more politically and financially insecure world. We are tied down by debt and other burdens before we can even begin our lives and yet we are expected to keep America’s edge.

Umm… the author is misuing statistics again like so many other CNN columns and other newsgroups. Okay so less than 18% of the workforce work more than 48 hours. What you do in the 40 hours or 48 hours is more important than the entire time you spent “working”. For instance, doing nothing for 6 hours and working 7 more hours is NOT equal to 13 hours of work. In third world countries where it is MOSTLY manual labor, guess what? You will be working longer hours because you are CHEAP labor. The fact that we worked less time and PRODUCE more financial gain out of it paints the U.S. as one of the BEST countries to work in. Misguided statistics means nothing if you don’t THINK about it first.

When I get on the road at 5:30 on NY’s Long Island and see the heavy traffic, and even traffic jams at that hour, I can assure you that American’s are anything BUT lazy. The problem is an unchecked Managerial Plutocracy that rewards itself inordinately at the expense of shareholders, middle management, and competitiveness. The amounts this upper tier exacts from American business is more akin to legalized plunder =- not salary.

I didn’t know Geoff was writing for The Onion these days.

Yes! Americans workers for the most part are a bunch of lazy sloobs. Try to hire someone for a job. The people who show up look like they just crawled out of bed, the way they are dressed. And so fat they can hardly walk. They are gross. Then they want paid to sit and talk to one another rather then do their jobs. I am talking about all ages. People in USA feel out government owes them a living. And try to get a government employee to do something for you, they are the most arrogant, mean people.
USA is on the way very rapidly to becoming a very poor nation. People have rejected God. When a nation rejects God, it will feel the wrath of God in many ways. USA is not a Christian nation anymore and this is one reason why people will not work because they do not understand the wisdom of the bible.

The way I see it. it’s like the chicken or the egg: which came first? Or in this case, which approach should our government take?

Why should someone want to work for 10 bucks an hour when they live in a 20 buck an hour economy? Meanwhile, big business sends the jobs to who knows where, paying a worker 5 bucks an hour living in a 2 buck an hour economy. Of course they are going to be motivated!

Big business is the one ramming this globalization garbage down everyones’ throat. And they expect everyone to like it and buy the garbage produced by these 2 buck an hour economies.

Wow! American business is so innovative.

So I ask, do you help the employees (the egg) in the US with benefits, tax deductions and stipends while our economy slowly adapts (i.e. housing prices, cost of living all have to come down) in order for the employees to want to earn 10 bucks an hour and feel good about it.

Or, do you slow the process of globalization (the chicken) so that those making their current salaries now (which may be good by global standards) can continue to look forward to a decent livelyhood while the US economy slowly adjusts.

Big business is just as easily to blame as all those ‘lazy’ americans. After all who makes up the employees of some of the greatest comapnies ever to sell the planet.

It’s time to start helping American workers adjust to this global crap.

Lazy people are smarter/, they invent useful things to make life easier, It’s because we are lazy we have remote controls for TV’s. They have to be creative and in todays world, execution is not a problem, you can get somebody in China or India to do it. Its the ideas that propel us forward. There is nothing wrong with being lazy.

How ironic that just a few days after this, we get a report about CEO pay right here on CNN Money. I’ll quote the report:

“The average CEO of a large U.S. company made roughly $10.8 million last year, or 364 times that of U.S. full-time and part-time workers, who made an average of $29,544, according to a joint analysis released Wednesday by the liberal Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.”

I bet Jeff Immelt isn’t working 364 times as hard as his employees.

Quite a misuse of ILO statistics by Geoff Colvin.

A much clearer picture results when U.S. underemployment statistics are reviewed… Including the millions and millions of experienced American citizen technical professionals that have been permanently displaced by greedy corporate executives substituting “fresh (inexpensive) young blood” - mostly imported from India and China.

For counterpoint, the NumbersUSA.com website is featuring a Labor Day petition to be sent to the 2008 presidential candidates regarding this controversial issue.

Wow. What a reaction. Guess Geoff got some stir, if not the reaction he wanted. I’ve lived and worked in Baltimore, New York, London, and Paris. And I’ve worked closely with people from Germany and Poland.

Point is, you do a disservice to everyone to say Americans are ‘lazy.’ There are things that need to change for us, sure. But trying to make it better this way isn’t right. We might need to work smarter, and harder in a different way. But more hours on the clock won’t be enough. The changes needed need to happen at a deeper level than that.

It’s intersting that they compared modern work habits to 1965; a time when most households only had one “breadwinner”. Modern-day households have two.

They also seem to only look at hours worked and not how much is accomplished (i.e. productivity). Maybe the average worker is working fewer hours, but the accomplish far more than the 1965 worker.

I don’t know who these people surveyed, but virtually everyone I work with puts in way more than 40 hours a week. Furthermore, I also don’t think the article takes into account how much more “connected” to our jobs many of us are today as compared to the past. With cell phones, Blackberrys, Laptops, and pagers, many professionals nowdays are really NEVER “off the clock”. I was sitting on my couch last night at 10:00pm exchanging work related e-mails with my boss via Blackberry. Would the authors claim this was not work simply because I was at home?

I don’t think Americans are inherently lazy. I think we suffer from a lack of motivation. What are we working for? To fund an unjust war in Iraq? To line the pockets of an elite few who will actually benefit? To work towards meaningful change that will benefit future generations only to see the rug pulled out of under underneath us? I’m exhausted, I’m sick of eight years of feeling like my voice doesn’t matter, I’m sick of feeling like my President doesn’t care. Until Bush and his administration are gone, I’m afraid this won’t change. I can’t wait until 1-21-09 when I hopefully will wake up to a new day.

Americans are lazy? This is a broad generalization. I can agree that the younger generations - on average - are appallingly lazy. They have been raised to expect anything they want, when they want, for minimal effort and no discomfort. Sadly, they will be running our country someday.

The majority of the ‘over 30′ work force in place today is not lazy. I work 3 jobs to make ends meet, plus taking care of everything on the home front. My husband works 2 jobs. We are not over extended on credit, we live simply, in a nice but simple home, have one very old paid for vehicle and one new, cheap car. The problem? Our main jobs do not pay enough to support living more than hand to mouth. My husband routinely puts in 18 hour days for his main job. He is salaried and not compensated for the extra time, it is just expected. There is no extra vacation, insurance is minimal. My jobs are all low paying with no benefits at all because i am working for non-profit groups who are scraping to get by. The work is fulfilling, so i stay. I used to work in a high profile office environment - over worked and salaried with minimal time off and don’t think about calling in sick - but it just came down to the fact that my mental health was worth more than $30k a year. So, my lazy American butt gets up at 5am and goes to rest at 10pm, if i’m lucky i catch the news and Iron Chef once a week. My friends in Europe can’t keep up with the pace of life here, they go home from their vacation here with several days off to rest before going back to work. We are lazy indeed.

“Instead of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., should we all be working 8 to 6?”

Um, a lot of us DO work 8 to 6. Heck, a lot of us work 6 to 8! I’m not even factoring in the hour or two most of us waste every day on commuting. Where does this CEO get off saying Americans are lazy? Did he only make $9 million this year instead of 10? Can he only pay for five vacations this year instead of six? Will his kid’s Sweet 16 present be a BMW instead of a Bentley? Poor thing. Must be the average American’s fault!!

Having lived in the US, Europe and Asia, my perspective is that American work less hors that Asians but quite a few more than Europeans. As it has been said, I agree that younger folks (18-24) have very different expectations of what working hard is. I also think that the US Bush policies force the average middle class American to work very hard just to stay alive whereas in Europe you don’t have to work as many hours to have a decent life. My two cents.

This article is the complete opposite of articles I have recently read. The other articles have noted how workers in the U.S. work MUCH more than in European nations such as France or Germany. While we are lucky to get 2 weeks paid vacation per year, some Europeans are awarded 6+ weeks of paid vacation per year! Also, new parents in some other countries are given much more time off - & with pay - than our employees. This, to me, doesn’t infer that we are slackers! I really hope that our future generations of workers won’t have to put in 50+ hours per week just to make ends meet & to remain competitive in a world market.

I do believe Americans are slacking in the work field, especially young adults. Young kids today do not believe in working or getting a college education. A large group of children who graduate from high school do not attend college or go into the work field. They just stay right at home with their parents, and it’s getting worse and worse. You have a lot of adults who rather be on government assistance than to earn a REAL paycheck as well, so that contributes to Americans’ laziness. Then you have the ones that are only focusing on getting an NBA contract or NFL contract instead of pursuing a real career. There are some other factors too, but I just wanted to just state a few of them. Overall, these younger generations are getting lazier and lazier, and after awhile, the economy will collapse.

Hard work is for animals and machines.

Do not work harder or even smarter. Just do enough to keep that paycheck coming in. Your extra efforts will not make you a better person. Just keep on loafing around, get paid, and save for retirement. Let those other nations work hard and break their backs. Americans should have learned by now that being lazy builds character.

Lazy and hours worked doesn’t add up. We should be arguing how productive American workers are. If one person works an 8hr day and anther person works a 10hr day doesn’t account for how much work ether has done.

Depends on what rank you are-
the higher the rank the bigger the slacker.

Exactly what group of Americans are calling lazy? I don’t know a single executive that only works 40 hours a week. I averaged 55 hours as an executive. Also many of my peers have working wives. This was not the case for my mother. Most mothers stayed home when I was a child (50’s and 60’s).

I’d be happy to give up all spare moments, to further the wealth of some rich guy, after all he’s my employer, and where would I be, without the benevolence of my lord? I don’t need holidays, weekends, or time off for a funeral, rather work me 120 hours a week, and then the corporations can charge me the equivalent of 119 hours a week, to live, that way, I can keep an hour of my labor, might afford me nothing. Thanks, for the same. Of course, I haven’t had a vacation in five years or more, but we can count my bathroom break, a vacation. Wait, no time left for that, so what next? Toilets in our cubicles? How about this, we can make the workers peddle an exercise bike to offset the electrical cost of the building, anything to make my employer better able to afford buying his 16 yr old daughter a $50,000 BMW. C’mon, four vacation homes aren’t enough for him, he really deserves better, whereas I’m a peasant, and should never be allowed to own land, it makes much more sense to allow a chosen few, to own it all, and call us lazy. I smell something burning, oh yeah, Rome is on fire. I’ll toast marshmallows. Remember, I’m lazy.

Americans are far from “Slackers” We all work hard and have different work schedules. I would like to see more jobs available to the American people rather than “Farm” it out to the Chinese.

The idea that American workers are overcompensated does not square with history. It might be fairer to say they are under-motivated. In the last 60 years about 50% of GDP went to wages and salaries an average. In the last few years it has gone down to about 46%, despite an increase in the percentage of people working.

If compensation to labor were at the historical average over $530 billion more a year would be going to labor. The rate of job growth over the last 7 years is the worst 7 year period since a period starting in 1943. Other than the post W.W.II let up you would have to go back to The Great Depression to find a period this bad.

The Bush tax cuts has shifted hundreds of billions of dollars a year from working Americans to the elite. Low top marginal tax rates bring slower growth over the next 5 to 7 years. When the top rate is low the economic elite take more personal income, live richer and invest less in America’s future. Low rates give CEOs an incentive to squeeze those below them to increase their own pay.

Low top tax rates have negative consequences first to the middle class then to everyone. It is no accident that annual productivity growth has dropped to 0.5%. The anecdotal evidence I hear is that employee theft is up, which would be consistent with employees being underpaid.

The worst 5 to 7 year growth rates we have ever had started in 1925 when the top rate was cut to 25%. The best growth started when the top rate was 79%. In the last 25 years the best 5 year growth started in 1982 with a top rate of 50%, the worst growth started in 1988 when the top rate was 28%.

When we have 5 to 7 years of growth data following the 2003 tax cut it will become obvious what a disaster that policy was.

I can’t imagine too many employees who actually feel that they owe their employer anything more than what the stated hours are. If you, as an employee, feel you are only lining the pockets of someone else, and don’t see anything in it for yourself, what else would anyone expect?

The examples in other countries are of rapidly expanding economies with lots of opportunities (or at least the appearance of) for those that work hard. I don’t know anyone who works for someone else that even feels there are any opportunities for growth or more money in their company. They all feel as if they are “feeding the pig” as one stated. They all started out as highly motivated, creative, and driven workers, but eventually became disillusioned. I once read a quote that said it perfectly: “I thought I wanted a career. It turns out I only wanted a paycheck.”

The employers out their that realize that people will work hard for their own benefit, and motivate their employees the right way, by sharing the wealth and the profits, will be unbelievable successful companies. There’s a ton of untapped talent going to waste in corporate cubicles.

As a business owner , I have seen evidence of the things this articles
reports.
My observation is that the younger folks ,18-24 have different expectations of what they should have to do on the job . Their defination of
a hard day on the job is very ,very different from people born before 1970.

While America trys to compete against
$1.39 per hour Mexican Labor and 43 cents per hour Chinese Labor , Our younger labor wonders why they cannot make top dollar as their fathers before them , literally paid more money for less work . they wonder why they are expected to attended work on time and daily . ( some of my mine have missed 20+ days per year and thought it was reasonable )

I hope America wakes up , we have the intelligence and the tools to compete.
I just hope we have the will.If we don’t, we will have the highest standard of living TAKEN from us.

John

It’s high time the workers of the world unite and say enough is enough.I f all of us demand 40 hr work weeks and benefits the Corporate whores wouldn’t be able to get away with murder. We the workers of the world are the majority…

This is possibly the most misguided article of all time. It’s a perfect example of quoting someone’s mediocre research without examining the intricacies of the definition of time at work and leisure time. For instance, who includes sleep as leisure time? I thought that was necessary to live. And, just because leisure time has increased doesn’t mean someone is laying on the couch. They could be playing sports, reading books, or participating in their favorite hobbies. I am an American living in Europe, and I am constantly asked why Americans work so hard. I encourage Geoff to get out more and explain to me how it is America that is “lazy” (which is sometimes otherwise known as enjoying life) or not working hard enough. Oh, and one more thing, attributing the obesity epidemic to not working as many hours is ridiculous. This article is a joke. You can’t just throw in one statistic and draw conclusions about an entire country or the world.

Hell no we are not lazy, American company’s dont wont to pay us for anything over 40 hrs( Lowes, Home Depot
Wal-mart )And the CEO’s make 2 million a year. corporate greed is the down fall of our country, IT is sucking the life right out of Americans.

What do companies expect when they convert everyone from hourly to salaried? Of course they’re going to get less work out of their people. I averaged over 3000 hours per year when I was hourly. When I was converted to salaried, that dropped almost immediately to about 2000. You want those 1000 hours back? I’ve got 4 words for you. Show me the money.

“the researchers figure we’re getting about 117 hours of leisure per week (including sleep), vs. 110 hours in 1965. That’s more than 360 additional idle hours per year.”

Instant invalidation. Sleep is not leisure; it’s an essential, biological healing process. And the other 8 a day are spent eating (essential biological process), socializing and playing sports (valuable bio-psychological processes), and being put on hold by some outsourced CSR in India (which certainly does not make India more productive).

And screw the United Nations. It has no judicial power whatsoever, no court to enforce any kind of global standard. So it certainly has no authority to judge me…

I agree with much of what has been written above…also as already mentioned hours per week is not the whole picture - Europeans have much more vacation each year than Americans so this author is just pretty stupid for not even mentioning that.

Having been to other countries, I can attest that our counterparts in developing nations are working much more than we are. Right or wrong, we are competing with people around the world that work for MUCH LESS pay and are putting in 60-80 hours a week.
Since I work in manufacturing, it’s a hard reality to face that my job will likely be in China within 5-10 years. I’m a hard worker but this will happen REGARDLESS of how hard I work since I’m not willing to work for $10k/year.
It’s just an ugly game of global musical chairs right now and some of us are going to end up out of work within the next few years.

I think the article’s author should move to Mexico City and find an eighty hour per week job pushing a broom for $1.00 per hour. After all, hard work for hardly any money builds character!

I doubt the statistics being cited in this article include unpaid overtime for white-collar workers. If they did, Japan would be way ahead of us on hours worked per worker. My wife is from Japan and ALL of her friends I’ve met (all with college degrees) work Monday-Saturday 12+ hours per day and often on Sunday. This ‘overwork’ can lead to death: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

This article also is written from the perspective as if we’re competing in the Olympics. I don’t think this is completely accurate. I believe we’re in a global economy where every country and company makes ‘deals’ that benefit both sides.

Americans are far from lazy. In fact, they work too much. I know several people who work well over 50 hours a week. They are exhausted, cranky and always headed for the fast food places, since they don’t have time to cook. Checked the freeways lately? There’s more accidents every day, as people are too tired to pay attention. My sister went to a retirement party for one of her managers, who was a workaholic. Two weeks after his party, he was dead of a heart attack.

Question for the Editor: How do the global numbers skew when commuting time is averaged into the mix? I hear so many people complaining about traffic and long commutes as “work” time when commuting to a far-flung leafy suburb is actually a “non-work” activity.

When my sister lived in Germany her commute was 45 minutes each way by car. The locals thought she was crazy and were actually a little insulted that she thought the area where they worked was not suitable and that she drove instead of using public transportation. I think the commuting culture we have developed int he US is self-destructive. As an employer, I want focused and hapy employees. But their biggest complaint is how long it takes to commute — which I believe is a wholy personal choice.

I agree, Americans are getting lazier and it’s starting at a younger age. As an educator, I can tell you that our historic drive is waning. What’s more disturbing, is that American parents, as a whole, are comfortably OK with our youth doing less and living off the hard work of the parents.

There are some aspects of our work day that are being overlooked. I have friends in Houston that spend two hours a day commuting. Not exactly leisure time. I personally rarely work over 40 hours a week, and am not far from work, but I also attend school on weeknights and spend my weekends pursuing other interests that, hopefully, will eventually earn some extra income and afford me greater financial freedom. None of that is monetized, though, so I guess it isn’t important to the helmsmen of the US economy.

I think the freedom to be idle doesn’t mean people are, especially in an economy where long-term job security is hard to come by. Many people spend their extra hours developing business plans, doing odd jobs, or honing skills to fulfill their long-term goals, whatever they may be. And it’s difficult to work harder for a company that’s going to lay you off as soon it’s less profitable to keep you around.

And what about families? We’ve become so obsessed with economic growth, we’ve neglecte raising healthy, self-sufficient people and teaching them how to excel. That’s going to hurt us far more than working a few hours less.