Many people work longer hours than 30 years ago. Since 1981 two-adult households have added six hours – nearly a whole working day – to their combined weekly workload.
No they haven\’t. This is simply a lie.
Leisure hours have risen: so working hours must have fallen.
And to think, our tax money pays for these cretins to type away.
- Today, nearly 2.5 million people can’t find jobs. Cutting labour to save money without changing working hours means some are burdened with overwork while others lose their livelihoods.
- As a result of this growing inequality in working time, the unpaid components of life are suffering. Family life, neighbourhood networks, time with children and quality of life for older people are all diminished, with painful results for society that sometimes get lumped together and lamented as ‘Broken Britain’.
I\’m sorry? More leisure time leads to a diminution of social life?
Eh?
Doesn\’t this rather obviate their own crazed logic?
There’s no need to stand on ceremony, Tim. Just say what you think.
Pingback: Today’s drivel « Peter's Place
You obviously don’t understand value-free economics, Tim.
On the contrary, Tim – working time is actually rising. The mean total hours worked by full time employees rose from 39.0 to 40.0 between 1997 and 2009 (ASHE surveys, Table 1.9 each year). Evidence shows that huge and increasing numbers of unpaid overtime hours are worked each year, so it’s not that much of a surprise to see a rise in the overall figure.
Is it so bad to point out that an over-focus on work makes us poorer human beings and that people wanting to put their lives back on track might well want to start by reducing their working time?
Type in haste, review at leisure…
Apologies – ASHE shows a reduction of one hour in FT hours between 1997 and 2009. The recession has also brought an end to the increase in unpaid overtime – though this remains at a very high level and whether the halt is permanent or temporary needs the end of the recession to establish.
Lower working time remain a good thing, though…
Tim,
You’re working backward from time-use studies to compare apples to oranges. The nef is referring to PAID work. Your favored calculation, even if it is correct, which I would dispute, refers to paid AND UNPAID work. Using a different definition than you do doesn’t make people “lying cretins.” But relying on such sophistic sleights of hand, as you do, makes you a less than credible source.
Oh, now wait, here comes the ad hominems from your admirers.
Tim adds: The nef refers to paid work in hte report, yes….but not in the precis or any of the publicity about it. For that alone they should be condemned, misleading people. In the report itself they still miss entirely that there is indeed more leisre as a result of unpaid household production declining: further, that an inevitable part of their plan is that this would increase. Indeed, their plans seem designed to increase this…grow our own veg etc.
Given that the fail this very simple first test (not just me saying this, the Stiglitz/Sen commission for Sarkozy made exactly this point, that it is leisure which is important, not simply paid work out of the paid/unpaid pair) then yes, “lying cretins” sounds fair to me.
Ah yes, how foolish of me to assume that “lying cretins” was your conclusion when actually it was your premise. My bad.