Karlin Lillington of the Irish Times and Jon Ihle of Back Seat Drivers are having a "discussion" on the merits of the US vs. EU vacation time.
It's hard to argue with the premise that more vacation is fun and refreshing, but it also seems blatantly obvious to me that the less time you spend on the job, the less you produce. Sure, Karlin is a journalist and may be more productive after breaks, but I'm not sure that works the same for the guy who's putting radiators in new cars at the assembly plant.
And, productivity growth is vital for Europe.
When I read these words (from the ILO report) "European and other industrialized countries - while achieving slightly lower productivity growth rates on average than the US" and then read that the difference is that the US experienced 2.2% productivity growth over 7 years compared with 1.2% in the EU I have reason to suspect the rest of this press release. Considering the size of these two economies (US & EU) and that we're talking about a 7 year period, the difference between 2.2% and 1.2% sounds massive to me.
Also, Karlin makes reference to the fact that some EU states have lower unemployment rates than the US. Well, other than the UK, the rest of the states mentioned (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Sweden)are small to minnow sized economies. And, just as there are regions in the US where unemployment is well below the national average, so it is with the EU (although Iceland is not in the EU, a fact overlooked by the ILO). The crucial fact remains that the EU's unemployment rate is well above the US rate.
One key factor not mentioned in the ILO report is that the US created 20m jobs in the 1990s while the EU created 2m.
