I have a friend who stated to me that even though France has a 35 hour work week they have some of the most productive people in the world. Is this statement true? How would you determine that?
you didnt ask him how he had determined that?
missed opportunity maybe.
It seems to be derived from GDP per hour.
http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/22/cx_da_0322topnews_print.html
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL
2008 france was 98.2% against a USA 100%
as compared to the above quote for 2006 of 105% to 100%
maybe things are getting worse… maybe the statistics are too course, not reliable.
always be suspicious of statistics
GDP/hour is very misleading. There is not a linear relatioship between GDP/h and GDP/capita.
French employers have few manhours available to them(35 hours a week, numerous vacation days, etc), so they have to maximize the productivity of each one; you see lower per-manhour productivity elsewhere because there’s less of a need to work the workers(for example, China isn’t on the chart because the large labor pool makes labor-intensive processes more attractive than in most every other country). Also remember that French companies are loath to hire new workers because they’re near-impossible to get rid of; by contrast, seasonal jobs are common in the US.