US CEO Blasts 'Three Hours a Day' French Workers

Let's not get all excited about the fact that somehow the French being lazy means we're doing any better.

Latinos are willing to work for less in low end jobs and Asians are coming in droves to take the high end ones. Americans have a ton of work to do as well.

Quote from Lilian : Let's not get all excited about the fact that somehow the French being lazy means we're doing any better. Latinos are willing to work for less in low end jobs and Asians are coming in droves to take the high end ones. Americans have a ton of work to do as well.

not to worry, this smells like your average union /socialist/european bashing thread

Quote from vaultaddict : not to worry, this smells like your average union /socialist/european bashing thread

Seriously. The casual xenophobia reminds me of reading something on Yahoo Answers.

Obligatory:

That US CEO is an idiot.
France productivity is higher than Germany's and much higher than of Britan's.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?...ode=LEVEL#

Quote from procop : That US CEO is an idiot. France productivity is higher than Germany's and much higher than of Britan's. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?...ode=LEVEL#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...our_worked

and right by Ireland.. so they come in 7th place (still below the United States).

But then when you look at PPP per person..

they fall down to 15th

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...n_employed

but they also have one of the youngest workforces in the world.. because their effective active retirement age is 59.1 even though the official is 60.

So does is surprise you that younger people who work the least amount of hours per year do more per hour than others PER HOUR? When you start looking at how much they do annually though.. it starts looking much more dismal.

So why do Americans do more do more per hour.. and do more annually? On top of that we have an older workforce that still accomplishes this (our effective retirement age is almost 6 years later than France)..

Quote from DJPlayer : So why do Americans do more do more per hour.. and do more annually? On top of that we have an older workforce that still accomplishes this (our effective retirement age is almost 6 years later than France)..

I think part of the reason is France workforce has on average 37.5 vacation days a year ( 30 of them are mandatory by French law) and US workforce has 17, non of them are mandatory.

I wish we have the same vacations as French and Germans enjoy.

Quote from barnz008 : Staying home is hard work. - Posted from my Obamaphone.

except "obama phones" ( more like reganphones )
are dumb phones 250min/250txt no data

so no

Quote from Lilian : Let's not get all excited about the fact that somehow the French being lazy means we're doing any better. Latinos are willing to work for less in low end jobs and Asians are coming in droves to take the high end ones. Americans have a ton of work to do as well.

But according to Democrats, there's work which is simply beneath us Americans to perform what with "Jobs that Americans won't do" and all.

Quote from procop : I think part of the reason is France workforce has on average 37.5 vacation days a year ( 30 of them are mandatory by French law) and US workforce has 17, non of them are mandatory. I wish we have the same vacations as French and Germans enjoy.

and we have to keep in mind that expect and pretty much demand this. If I recall correctly there lunches where extremely long also. I think everyone knows French eat slower and blame our American fast food stuffing our face style on why we're obese etc..

In general they're a more laid back society. There is no way they'd compete with other countries head to head because .. they just don't work enough to compete.

Wow.. 37.5 vacation days a year.. That's what.. virtually 2 months of vacation per year? Wow...

Quote from jonsmith74 : But according to Democrats, there's work which is simply beneath us Americans to perform what with "Jobs that Americans won't do" and all.

There's some truth to that though. You can throw the leechers off of welfare and they're still not going to pick fruits for $3 an hour. They might start robbing and looting though, since that's a lot easier.

Quote from Lilian : There's some truth to that though. You can throw the leechers off of welfare and they're still not going to pick fruits for $3 an hour. They might start robbing and looting though, since that's a lot easier.

Control illegal immigration via enforcement and the $3 labor pool evaporates. Simple really. Just enforce the law.

But even so we have seen with employer enforcement Americans lining up up for jobs previously held by illegals by the hundreds.

The problem ain't low wages, it's illegals distorting the labor market.

Quote from jonsmith74 : Control illegal immigration via enforcement and the $3 labor pool evaporates. Simple really. Just enforce the law.

$3/hr is a myth, even for migrant agricultural workers. Most immigrant labor, legal and illegal, is paid at least minimum wage, but some employers do not like American employees and will not hire them, period, because Americans are far more likely to insist that employers obey the law. Some employers that are uniformly very good about hiring only Americans are indian tribes.

CNN agrees..... The french are lazy! Of course I expect all of the left-leaning posters on this forum to notify us that's because CNN is a right-wing rag

Are the French really that lazy?
[cnn.com]

A U.S. manufacturing executive ignited a firestorm after calling the French economy uncompetitive due to its unproductive labor force. He has a point.

Quote : Instead of opening a discussion in the country as to the possible merits of the executive's views, blind nationalism overtook rational thought, creating an international incident. While the words used by Titan (TWI) chief executive Maurice "the Grizz" Taylor in his letter to a French official were clearly inflammatory, they contained an uncomfortable and inconvenient truth that France's manufacturing base, indeed, its economy as a whole, has become dangerously uncompetitive. The country needs to quickly make some tough labor reforms if it ever intends on getting back on solid economic ground.

Quote : Taylor doesn't have a crystal ball nor does he have knowledge of the future plans of a rival that is 20 times his company's size, but he does have a point – France has a problem when it comes to productivity, especially in its manufacturing sector. The weak European economy has decreased demand for French industrial products in a big way and its companies are being held hostage to unions that command great power with the government.

Quote : Peugeot tried to close plants and lay off workers to adjust production levels to meet market demand, but its unions successfully stalled the implementation of the management's austerity plan by taking the car company to court. Peugeot was allowed to cut production, but it was not allowed to lay off any of its workers until the court gave it "permission."

Quote : Peugeot's story is far from unique. Indeed, Goodyear, the owner of the tire plant at the center of the Taylor drama, put the Amiens plant on the block because it was having a hard time selling its premium tires to the depressed French market. Taylor looked into buying the plant, but the union insisted that he guarantee all of the workers' jobs for at least seven years. Taylor was shocked. "Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires," he said. "What does the crazy union have?"

Quote : The "crazy" unions had French law on their side. Even though Goodyear decided to close the plant it was obligated to keep all of its workers employed. So after it cut the plant's capacity by 90%, it still had to pay all of its workers their full salaries and benefits. That probably explains why they were only working three hours a day when Taylor visited the plant late last year. It is also probably explains why they felt they had the power to dictate terms to Taylor as if they were in the driver's seat. Indeed, France has one of the most protective labor laws in the industrialized world. It ranks near the top of the OECD's employment protection index, which measures how easy it is for employers in rich nations to hire and fire workers. France had a score that was more than three times higher than that of the United States, which was at the very bottom of the list thanks to its business-friendly labor laws. France also outranked its industrial rival Germany, as well as economic basket cases Greece and Italy.

Quote : But the difficulty in hiring and firing workers is just one defect of the French labor system. Small businesses are particularly hurt by the 35-hour law, which forces employers to pay their hourly workers overtime if they work more than 35 hours a week. As a result, the French work fewer hours than just about anybody in the OECD. In fact, the average French employee worked just 1,476 hours in 2011, according to the latest data available from the OECD and the French labor department. In contrast, workers in the US rocked 1,704 hours per year, 21% more than their counterparts in France.