| Topic: | Re:Re:Productivity Puzzle | |
| Posted by: | Christopher Gillie | |
| Date/Time: | 01/08/18 00:17:00 |
| Sadly I agree that Brexit is causing a lot of investment to be postponed or go to other countries. I disagree with your premise that there is a fixed amount of work to do, and therefore productivity increases must lead to less time worked. The benefits people get through increased productivity do not necessarily have to lead to the same (indexed) pay and fewer hours worked. In the US, they have a lot less leave than us, and choose to be richer, instead of having a lot of free time. They have the 2nd highest average wage in the world, albeit very unequally spread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage ) If you want to earn more, earn more, if you want more time off, have more time off. I am definitely against forcing people to work less by imposing clumsy and rigid laws, and would rather that employers were flexible. I disagree that "The fact is the British work too hard to be productive". Productivity is mostly about tools and methods, not amount of hours worked. Encouraging people on how they could do their jobs more effectively, what tools could help them and how working processes can be made better, provides a more concrete path to better productivity than additional holidays. Sadly, in too many places this habit is not there, and in the UK we instead just do what the bosses say without being creative and helpful. |