Work Weeks Around The World
Work Weeks Around The WorldMoved from FortyHourWeek
There are two types of workers in the USA:
In reality , most employees put in between 50 to 60 hours per week and still take work home. Meal times are not included. Nine-to-Five is a joke. (This is arguable, especially "most")
A starting worker has 10 days public holidays, plus 2 weeks paid vacation. An extra day vacation per year with the company is typical. (This may be average for starting mid-level workers. A large number of low-end jobs will have 2 weeks (or less) paid time off including any holidays and sick days.)
Companies get a free ride on the backs of their employees and the quality of life outside of work is very poor compared to that in other countries. Americans: WhyDoYouPermitThisToBeDoneToYou?
Note that 10 days public holidays and 2 weeks paid vacation is what a starting worker *sometimes* gets if they're lucky. More likely, you'll have to work half or more of your holidays and may not be given ANY vacation time. Vacation time and holidays are completely at the discretion of the employer. Occasionally your alotted vacation time may be *paid vacation* time. "Usually", not "occasionally". Companies may also let you take additional vacation time, beyond the paid time, with no pay.
Where I work (in the U.S.A.), we have an average of about a 1-hour commute each way and an 8.5 hour workday for a total of 10.5 (of which .5 is unpaid lunch), and record our time to specific tasks rounded to within 15 minutes. Our managers have goals/quotas of on-task time vs. internal support/infrastructure time. We're expected to take a few breaks throughout the day, and if they're short (<10 minutes) we don't even have to account for them, but none more than 15 minutes. Browsing the web, chatting, playing games, etc., is tolerated to the degree that it would fall within those total break times, but if it seems to be getting out of hand, then it's considered slacking. We often work through lunch, and talk work during our breaks, but have occasional bursts of silliness where most of the company ends up sharing jokes and quotes or throwing things at each other for a few minutes. Telecommuting is tolerated in special cases and for veterans, but is not preferred, (by the company or the workers, we prefer working together). Actual office hours are fairly flexible - some people are in by 7 and out before 4, others don't arrive until 9:30 and stay later, there's no one shouting at you for being 5 minutes late, but it does come up if someone consistently arrives late and leaves early. We're expected to occasionally be available to work from home at night and on weekends as a matter of team spirit, but not as a requirement; no one thinks less of you if you're not available when an emergency arises.
In Australia in the late 1980s, the work week was 35 hours, including two 15 minute breaks morning and afternoon, plus 30 minutes for lunch. As soon as more than 35 hours were worked, the employee had to be paid time and a half.
A starting worker had 10 days public holidays plus four weeks paid vacation. An extra week per year with the company up to six weeks vacation is typical.
This has the effect of keeping more people employed and the true cost of labor visible to both management and the government.
It was also my experience that the average worker was way more productive in a single 35 hour week than their American counterpart working 50 hours.
Anyone care to provide an update?
Sure. I don't know where the above comments come from, but not from any IT shop in Sydney I experienced in 15 years working there. For full time work in a skilled shop in Sydney, I'd estimate 50 hours/week on average, with bursts of 80 hours. Where the Aussie programmer gains on his Seppo counterparts is vacation and sick leave, which is almost always used.
Where the Seppo programmer leaves his Aussie counterpart in the dust is salary, material standard of living, taxes, and of course stock options. There are hardly any small IT shops in Sydney; I can think of only three prominent ones in the last decade. The financial climate there doesn't encourage anything entrepreneurial, and the big companies will give you either no options or only a token amount.
The upshot, in my limited experience of programming in the US (almost 3 years in San Diego), is the Seppo programmer puts in about the same number of hours during the week, with less holidays, but effectively double to triple the pay. So the Seppo programmer can look forward to retiring by age 40, if she likes, or age 50 if she wants to be really wealthy. Before 30 if you get a startup to IPO. The Aussie programmer will be lucky to retire at all. I don't know for sure, because there aren't that many old Oz programmers yet, but I think usually they move into middle management and finally hit the beach at about 65.
So I figure the average American geek gets about 20 years more time off than the average Australian geek. -- PeterMerel.
In my UK company, the situation is: a "normal" week of 37.5 hours, with a caveat that longer hours may be required from time to time as the needs of the business dictate (that's a normal clause for a consultancy business). For this, I receive a fixed monthly salary. There are per-diems for unusually arduous conditions - working away from home for long periods, etc. National holidays and annual leave combined comes to about 30 days.
There are various kinds of overtime (up to double time on national holidays, I think) for waged employees, and often time-off-in-lieu.
Every UK IT company I've worked for, bar one, has had some kind of flexi-time.
A EuropeanUnion directive limits "normal" weekly hours (I think to about 40, anyone to confirm?) for most jobs in member states. There are rules about breaks similar to those in Australia.
EU Working Time Directive limits working time to an average of 48 hours per week. In the UK, the regulations average it over a 17 week period. If the employee gives written notice that they are exempting themselves from the directive, they can work every hour God sends.
In my UK company, the situation is: 35 hours with extra hours paid at normal rate, except in "exceptional circumstances" (unwritten rule the boss asks you to work >10 hours overtime in a week or on a weekend). As an alternative to paid overtime, you can take one "flexi-day" a month. In addition to any flexi-days, you get about 35 days leave a year including bank (national) holidays. I could easily get a 10-15% pay increase by changing to a company without pay for extra hours or flexi days, 30 days leave a year etc., but when I did work for one, they "expected" 50-60 hour weeks. The fact a company pays you for extra time means they don't ask for it when it isn't absolutely necessary.
Conversely, junior doctors in UK NationalHealthService? hospitals are specifically excluded from that directive and are more-or-less required to work 70,80,90 hour weeks, more-or-less indefinitely. People die because of this. Same in Australia. Some of the people are doctors - missing out on sleep and non-work activities for a year at a time will bring out depression in many people.
Some of the 130 hours will probably be sleeping in the hospital, but on call. I understand that junior doctors think it lucky if they get an hour of uninterrupted sleep in this period, with interruptions every 15 to 30 minutes being more typical.
''I was talking about this very subject with a neurosurgeon. I asked her why doctors worked such extreme hours; she couldn't think of any reason, nor of any reason why a doctor shouldn't work the standard 40 a week. After further thought, she suspected machismo was the motivating force. As an aside, being from Europe she was horrified at the egos of American neurosurgeons. In Europe, medicine is viewed as a standard profession and the god-complex problem is not as common as in the US.''
Interesting. My view on the UK situation is that two juniors working 40 hours will cost more than twice as much as one working 80, and the lives lost and damaged (including the doctors themselves, good point) are considered a reasonable price to pay for not having to fund the NHS in any rational manner.
Did you know that NHS doctors are paid a discounted rate for overtime (as opposed to a premium rate like most hourly paid workers), making it hugely cheaper for hospitals to work them to the brink of collapse rather than hire some more?
Hey, it's a good thing that none of the software written by those bleary-eyed, scramble-brained 50-60 hour drones up at the top of the page has any impact on people's quality of life. Oh no, wait a minute...
Was that another CtrlAltDelete moment by any chance?
In Germany, it depends.
In many shops, OverTime is common.
I personally have worked with places that are the IT companies of big industries. I'm used to: You come and you go pretty much whenever you please. You write down how much you worked (i.e., were present at the place). You have to write down 40 hours per week, on average. Mere "indians" (coders with little responsibility) need to write down only some 35 to 40 hours per week, depending on contract.
Here (also in Germany), the same things happen. The result is that people stay at the office really long and play ComputerGames. They write down the number of hours they are present at the office, but they don't subtract breaks or other time not spent working. For me, this is really stupid, because I get strange looks when I work hard for 6 hours and then leave.
At a former job, I was told 200 hours a year, above the 40 a week, were expected. About a quarter of the people that were expected to do those actually did. I and many others never did those. Nobody criticized me for it.
German labor law says you must not work more than 54 hours a week, on average (I believe it was), unless you're a boss. And you must not work more than 11 hours on any single day (unless there's a real emergency).
Six weeks vacation a year is common.
In my experiences there are two type of contracts. One is with paid OverTime, other is with unpaid (or with a certain amount of unpaid OverTime hours). Paid OverTime is for non-management, management does not get paid OverTime. In the big IT shop I work at, just like with Andreas, there is no core time (come in whenever you want) and you write down your hours. But of course you have to deliver for your current project(s) and the project manager would notice if you write a lot more than you actually worked. There is also a short term account for OverTime (plus/minus 40 hours) and a long term account for OverTime. So unless you are situated in project that constantly requires OverTime for years (which I would leave sooner or later) that is a pretty good system. You don't even have to be physically at your work place - there is no attendance clock.
But I happen to work in a project consulting for government with attendance clock. So my company gets paid for the hours I am physically there. And I am adviced to write down these hours for my employer.
Travel time (the time for travel for instance from your workplace to a client) is handled differently. Up to about 5 years ago, travel time at my shop was 100% work time = 100% paid. (I worked about a year 100% off site and got about 400 hours on my long term OverTime account). Now it is paid 100% if work + travel time <= 8 hours/day and 50% if it is more than 8 hours/day. "Paid" means either as money or as free time.
-- Erik
The UK Independent reports that since the French instituted a mandatory 35-hour work week three years ago, the result has been happier workers and a more robust economy.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/europe/story.jsp?story=78940
There are some caveats, as always. In exchange for shorter hours, many workers voluntarily gave up other (typically French) benefits - now many of them are willing to work weekends, and during the month of August. Furthermore, the government had to subsidize the companies for doing this, and there's a budget shortfall.
The benefits are remarkable, though. Beyond the obvious benefit of more free time for people, French unemployment has fallen to the lowest figure for 18 years. Consumer spending is up, not down, and foreign investment in France is booming.
Yeah, deficit spending does feel pretty good for the first few years (you can try it at home, with your credit cards). Is there any reason to believe there's anything at work besides that stimulus to the economy? And what's their new, improved unemployment rate? 8.5%? An American leader would be taken out and shot if our unemployment got that high.
A French president would be taken out and shot if they allowed minimum wages anything near the American level as well... Tell that to the 8.5% who are without jobs at any wage, minimum or otherwise...
FortyHourWeek is about not burning yourself or your team out with counter-productive overtime, not jiggering your economy to postpone an unemployment crisis.
Note that both France and Germany, due to high labor costs and few hours worked, suffer from EuroSclerosis? -- the economies there suffer from high unemployment, budget deficits and a growing share of GDP that is spent on subsidizing people that are not in the workforce. This is the backside of fewer hours worked -- higher taxes and a less stable long-term economic outlook for both the government and future retirees.
Here in Sweden, the typical work week is around 40 hours, although most labor unions are slowly reducing this. Full-time at my job means 38.75 hours per week, 27 paid vacation days, plus paid holiday leave. Most employees have the right to OverTime compensation, but some have given this up in return for 32 paid vacation days instead of 27 and a higher base salary. Overtime usually pays between 50-100% extra for white-collar workers (more for blue-collar). Labor unions often allow up to 150 hours of overtime work in a year, more if this can be motivated (relatively rare, and usually frowned upon by the unions).
This leads to generally high employment costs for employers, and also higher taxes to compensate for the fewer hours worked. The problem is essentially the same as in France and Germany -- generous social benefits and high taxes crowd out employment, making the long-term situation uncertain. Also, salaries for college-educated workers are much lower than in comparable nations, although this is offset by the fact that higher education is free in Sweden (no tuition).
High employment costs (and very strict labor regulations regarding hiring and firing workers) also mean that employment growth for professionals in Sweden is very slow at the moment -- good for those in the system, but not very good for outsiders.
Moved from WhyDoYouPermitThisToBeDoneToYou
I have worked in both permanent (paid monthly, nominal hours-per-week, no overtime paid for but sometimes worked anyway) and contract (paid hourly according to actual hours worked, usually flat rate) positions in the UK IT industry. The overall feeling is one of some antagonism between "us" and "them". "Us" is anyone working at my level in the company, "them" is the management structure above us which does things like set salaries and ask people to work unpaid overtime, come in to work at weekends, or think about work at home.
It's generally assumed that most people would prefer to work fewer hours for the same (or more) pay, but "they" are always trying to get more hours for the same (or less) pay. Paid overtime (especially if time-and-a-half or double-time) can be seen as a perk given to favoured employees, but unpaid overtime is always viewed as suspicious. A parent can feel that he or she is letting their family down somehow if they work extra hours, even when paid for. Family life is just considered more important than work.
As an aside, the example in ExtremeProgrammingExplainedEmbraceChange where KentBeck is astonished by the team helping a team member to leave seems puzzling to me, and I guess to many UK and European people. Someone leaving a job for another one which gives a better family life can be seen as a victory for "us" over "them", and would be encouraged by "us" in every firm I've worked for.
I have worked for nearly 25 years in various environments, and I have never seen anyone try to sabotage a co-worker trying to find a new job, whether by refusing advice, or refusing to serve as a peer reference. - AnonymousCoward.
37.5 hours per week, with 20 days paid leave, plus 8-10 public holidays is a typical work description for a skilled or clerical job, which includes IT. Despite claims elsewhere on this page, this is not imposed by "government fiat". The only government requirements concern health and safety issues such as setting a maximum time without a break. Being able to (theoretically) demand that your employer release you from your metaphorical chains every few hours is also seen as a victory for "us" over "them". You only have to watch the flurry of activity every time we have a particularly hot or cold spell as people rush to look up if they can legally claim that work is untenable, and use that as an excuse to go home.
This doesn't prevent people working extra hours for a variety of reasons. I have worked extra hours, both paid and unpaid, in several jobs. In every case, though, the extra hours were seen as an imposition from above even when I chose to do it myself. The reasoning goes along the lines that it's OK, even heroic to work extra hours from time to time, but the fact that it needs to be done must be "their" fault. If "they" managed the company or project properly it shouldn't be necessary. Needing to work extra hours for too long, or too regularly is a classic prompt to look for another job.
Which leads to the title of this page. WhyDoYouPermitThisToBeDoneToYou is the kind of concerned question one of "us" would ask another, if it appeared that he or she was being exploited by "them". It shows just the kind of feeling praised by KentBeck in his book. What surprises me is the number of entries on this page which seem to be breaking these unwritten rules and siding with "them". Speaking out in favour of working extra hours, especially unpaid, is equivalent to announcing that you are in league with "them" and could lead to derision, ostracism or worse.
Nice summary, Frank, very insightful.
One statement stood out to me: ''"Us" is anyone working at my level in the company, "them" is the management structure above us''.
On a recent "team leadership" course I attended it was observed that this relation holds at all levels of an organization, even the board of directors.
CS Lewis also makes this point very well in a wartime talk called The Inner Ring (published in the anthology Weight of Glory ISBN 0684823845 )
I'm an American who has exempt status i.e. I get to work >= 40 hours every week with a set salary. I'm given 10 days of government holiday except my company steals them throughout the year and puts 5 around Christmas; not of benefit to me because I'm not Christian. I'd rather have more days off throughout the year. I additionally get 4 sick days and 10 paid vacation days, plus one half paid vacation per year with the company. So after ten years I'll have 15 days (three work weeks) of vacation. I can spend vacation time and sick time in increments of .1 hours. My usual practice is to work somewhere between 35 and 40 hours each week and make up with the difference by spending sick time or vacation time. This doesn't allow me to take week long vacations or stay home when I'm sick but it does keep me from going absolutely insane --BrianRobinson
Anyone know particulars of working conditions in Asia; in particular nations with a significant IT presence? Japan? Korea? China? And one which is particular interest to US software engineers--India?
(Speaking of which, is migration of jobs to lower-cost locales a problem for European firms?)
A year ago while I was an undergrad, I did a 7 month internship in Japan with a large, somewhat traditional company. From what I observed, people in my group routinely put in on average 12 +/- 2 hours a day, 10 being the minimum, an unknown number of hours being the maximum. Overtime compensation was capped at a monthly maximum, but I don't remember what the figure was, though I do remember it wasn't much. Note also that overtime can and often does extend into weekends.
Other companies were similar from what I saw, with variances in overtime compensation that mostly depended on how traditional the company was. This often includes zero compensation, called sabisu zangyo, or service overtime in English. The idea is that you work hard to show your loyalty to your company... rather than, perhaps, showing loyalty to money. But again, everything depends on the company. Some companies hire a lot of expats and are more sympathetic to their unwillingness to work crazy, possibly unpaid hours. However, regular overtime is nevertheless deeply ingrained into the "salaray-man" culture of Japan... along with heavy drinking in the off-hours, Friday nights being almost mandatory. --MyronWu?
I work for an Indian IT company. Like any other industry, there are people who 'live' in the office and there are people who put in the regular 40-45hrs per week. Most companies give you about 3weeks paid vacation, 10-12 declared holidays, 8 days sick leave and some even give you 8-10days paid-time-off which is different from the 3weeks vacation. By law, all women can avail 12weeks paid time off for childbirth - this is BY GOVERNMENT REGULATION - companies do not have a choice in this regard. I'm surprised there is no maternity-leave in the United States and some European countries - the developed countries, where women's rights are the 'best'!!!
Other relevant factors that would be good to know:
EditText of this page
(last edited September 4, 2010)
or FindPage with title or text search