NYT: "Europe Reluctantly Deciding It Has Less Time for Time Off"
 

Hi, maybe strictly this doesn't have to do with travel, but it's an interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/bu...ss/07WORK.html

I've noticed the change, in regards to vacations, with the European financial firms over the last 10 years. I worked on a fairly large and complicated transaction back in 1992, that had to be finished by August 1 as I was being told by the NY office of virtually every European bank that they couldn't get the approval of the right people after that date.

As a US banker, you could actually catch a bit of a break in August as the unavailability of the Germans and French made things fairly quiet. Starting about 5 or 6 years ago, that stopped being the case.

Given that scale of the world economy and the rapid movement of money, goods and services I guess European vacation schedules were bound to be impacted.

Interesting. I know of someone who was told, though, to expect delays in custom-ordered home fixtures from Italy because factories tend to shut down in August. But if anything, banks will probably reflect a change in the underlying work ethic first.

Also thought that it was interesting that Bavaria thought about lengthening the work week to 42 hours. (I think that it was Bavaria -- will have to check the article again.)

I was always jelous of a friend who gets 6week (!) annual holidays by common law, working in Germany. I live in Switzerland and get only 20 days (4weeks including Sat/Sun).

Uhhhh..I think you can safely NOT hold your breath while this "change" supposedly occurs.

And why it should surprise anyone that "bankers hours" in Europe are any "worse" than they are here is beyond my comprehension.

It's a definite trend I've been observing for at least a decade. Time was you could count on Paris to be half-dead in August, count on 2-hour lunches as the norm, count on towns in the south of France to be asleep for 3-4 hours every summer afternoon. Not so now. It's a mixed blessing for travelers.

Hey TopMan,
Why do you assume that the only bankers in this world are the one's that work in the retail branches? I can assure you that in the 10 plus years I worked in the corporate banking sector, neither I nor any of my colleagues worked "bankers hours."

The reality of finance in the US is that virtually every major US company gets a fair portion of its funding from either European banks or European investors.

My point was simply that the days of the corporate finance market quieting down in August, have long since passed.

Ah yes, the joys of socialism.

One thing though -- shops and restaurants in Europe do seem to have more "relaxed" opening hours. In NYC it'd be unusual to have shops or restaurants closed on Sundays or during the weekends. So in that sense, the European ethic is still considerably different from the American one.

Interesting. And, I don't doubt the change you all are describing. But, I suspect many can still take their August vacations and do what Americans tend to do...stay in touch electronically for the important stuff.

I read the article too, and felt kind of sad about it. It was nicer for me to think that there's a large part of the world that is less-workaholic, more of a stop-and-smell-the-roses-and-savor-the-wine kind of culture. So commerce wins, but quality of life suffers.
Yes, I'm a capitalist, but I still have fantasies about a better way.

Thanks, 111op...very interesting.

An excerpt...

Europe's long siesta, it seems, has finally reached its limit ? a victim of chronic economic stagnation, deteriorating public finances and competition from low-wage countries in the enlarged European Union and in Asia. Most important, many Europeans now believe that shorter hours, once seen as a way of spreading work among more people, have done little to ease unemployment.

"We have created a leisure society, while the Americans have created a work society," said Klaus F. Zimmermann, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. "But our model does not work anymore. We are in the process of rethinking it."

Germany seems to have a lot of problems -- not that I've really been following European developments closely at all. The unemployment rate is supposedly over 10% and it's even higher in Berlin, I think.

By the way, the article has become the most e-mailed article on NYT in the past 24 hours. The themes must resonate with a lot of people.

Oh well, even with shorter vacations Europeans can, unlike Americans, still take weekend vacations in Europe. :)

Ah well, capo, not quite true. I just proved you wrong, in fact:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...p;tid=34511242

Granted, it was a long weekend. :-) I should do a Sunday return trip for once.

OK, you got me! :)

I know it <i>can</i> be done (I once flew from Seattle to Paris for only four days over Thanksgiving weekend) but it's not nearly as easily done.

Yes, no argument there, capo. After all, there's an ocean that separates the two. :-)

But I, unlike Europeans, can take weekend vacations in New York City, D.C., the Shenandoah Mountains, West Virginia, the Finger Lakes, etc.

Rufus, you can have West Virginia and the Finger Lakes. I'll take Verona and the Italian Lakes. :)

My wife and I were talking about this subject this morning: why do Europeans have more time off work than do Americans and, if we want more leisure time, how can we Americans achieve just that?

Well, when I got out of college in 1949, I worked five-and-a-half days each week, with one Saturday morning a month off by rotation among our small staff.

In my next job, it was 50-50 -- all day Saturday and Sunday off, every other weekend.

Later, I got a job with Saturdays off, and it paid twice what I made when I got out of school. So what I made and how much time I got off had no relationship.

How was this achieved? Well, I've come to the conclusion that unions fought for and achieved this kind of leisure. I never was a union member, but I enjoyed the fruits of their labor.

With more and more of American labor non-unionized and in competition with other workers overseas, the likelihood of further leisure liberalization (more time off) is very unlikely.

I'm glad that the Germans are finally waking up. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Just a comment on &quot;bankers hours&quot;. It's true...I work for a bank, and we only work 1/2 days. We even have a bit of flexibility when figuring out which 12 hours/day we want to work!!

We just stayed at a B &amp; B in France. The owner's wife has worked for the same bank for 33 years. She currently works a 39 hour week rather than the bank's typical 35 hour week. She can then add these extra 4 hours per week to her vacation time. Doing this and adding it to the longevity accrual of vacation time gives her 3 paid months off a year. We were astounded!

I know that the minimum wage exists in the US but what about a minimum holiday entitlement? Is this not something that would be decided at a national level or would the individual states do it. I am interested to know. thanks

&gt;&quot;We have created a leisure society, while the Americans have created a work society,&quot; .... &quot;But our model does not work anymore. We are in the process of rethinking it.&quot;&lt;

I should think that neither model works very well.

All things in moderation.

&gt;I live in Switzerland and get only 20 days (4weeks including Sat/Sun). &lt;

That's about what we get in the US, not all at once though. It's usually 12 paid holidays and 10 days annual vacation.

What do you mean by paid holidays, ira? Do you mean days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the like? Presumably every country would have them in this case. I'm sure that the 20 days in Switzerland would just be vacation days alone.

I still think that Europeans have much more generous vacation allowances than the US.

&gt;I know that the minimum wage exists in the US but what about a minimum holiday entitlement? Is this not something that would be decided at a national level or would the individual states do it.&lt;

I expect that it would have to be national legislation.

However, consider a small business with 3 employees. If there is a minimum requirement of vacation time, this small company might well shut down.

One has to be careful about legislated entitlements.

&gt;Mr. Chirac is feeling pressure from his fiery finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has called for French employees to have the right to work more than 35 hours, if it fattens their paychecks.&lt;

Mr Chirac, may I work extra hours for extra pay?

No. Your employer must hire another person, with full benefits, instead.

That way you lose, your employer loses, the economy loses, and the unemplyoment rate drops marginally.

Ira,
A French friend told me a great story regarding the woman who is the Mayor of Lille, the one who was the main proponent of the law preventing overtime.

She had dinner reservations for 8, but didn't show until 10 something. On arrival, the owner told her that he was closing as he couldn't afford to have his employees put in extra hours that night and not be available at other times that week.

Not sure how true it is, but it makes an interesting story nonetheless.

capo--can I also have New York City, and D.C., and Boston and the Adirondacks, and such?

Absolutely, Rufus. As long as you'll let me have Paris and Rome and Barcelona and the Alps.

&gt;What do you mean by paid holidays, ira? Do you mean days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the like? &lt;

Yes, 111. If kappa is getting holidays in addition to his 20 days of vacation time, than that is about 10 days more than is usual in the US.

I would think so, ira -- Europeans typically get more vacation days. But well I'm not kappa so I won't be too presumptuous.

I worked with a Venture Capitalist who was asked by the Crowned Prince of the Netherlands to come talk to him about making the Netherlands more entrepreneurial. Our Company opened a division in the Netherlands. It was a failure in the end because we could not solve the differences; not so much in work styles (the employees we hired were pretty much self starters and worked long hours out of desire) but because of the mandated time off and other perks. They got something like 22 vacation days, another 12 paid holidays, and paid sicktime which they didn't have to count anywhere.

But all of that was nothing compared what it took to actually fire a person! The policies and laws unfortunately are not friendly to entrepreneurial efforts.

I've heard that it's very hard to fire someone in France as well. Also renters have a lot of protection.

It's all a very different system.

Welcome to the stagnant world of Socialism.

To clarify my previous post, I meant 20 paid vacation days besides the holidays such as New Year, Easter, etc. I have just counted my holidays on the calendar. There are 9 of them, which means I get total 29 non-working days yearly besides Saturdays &amp; Sundays .

The sad thing about year 2004 for us is so many holidays concide with Satuday or Sunday, eg, 25/26Dec &amp; 31Dec/01Jan holidays are wasted because they are already Saturday &amp; Sunday! This is almost tragic. I think in some other countries, you get compensated like getting the following Monday holiday in such case. How doest it work in US?


A funny

Typically you get the following Monday off in the US. Also, US holidays (apart from Christmas and Thanksgiving and the like) are arranged to fall on a Monday. For example, &quot;President's Day&quot; (or is it &quot;Presidents' Day&quot;?) (now, don't quiz me on what this celebrates) always falls on a Monday.

This year, for example, Independence Day (July 4th) falls on a Sunday. So we got July 5th (the Monday) off.

I remember thinking that I'll be losing one holiday this year or next around Christmas/New Year because of the day the holiday falls on. I can't remember why though. But that's really the exception.

Some of the holidays are set to be a Monday, but Presidents Day? :-) I don't personally know anyone who has that off. I think it's for the post office and government workers. It's the same with Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc.

The &quot;usual&quot; holidays in the US are New Years Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day for a total of 6.

Some companies give the day after Thanksgiving off since Turkey-day is always a Thursday but retail sure doesn't. That's the busiest shopping day of the year.

I've worked as a contractor for a few companies that still have Good Friday as a holiday, or a 1/2 day Christmas Eve, or give you Friday off if Christmas is on a Thursday. Mostly I've worked for companies that give you the minimum 6.

Wow. Interesting. I get P Day off and also MLK Day off, along with Good Friday.

Guess I shouldn't complain. :-)