NPR Doesn't Like the 35 Hour Work-Week in France

Morning Edition did a segment this morning on the 35 hour work week in France. To show how bad the 35 hour work week is, the segment told listeners that hospital workers had accumulated 2 million days worth of overtime, which they will have to take as days off by the end of 2012. It warned that this would force hospitals to shut down for months at a time.

Most listeners would have little ability to assess the risk from taking this many days of leave since they probably don't have much idea of how big France's hospital sector is. In the United States the hospital sector employs 4.8 million workers. If the sector in France is proportional to the size of its employed workforce, then France has approximately 1.2 million workers in the hospital sector. This means that if everyone uses their days off (workers in the U.S. often lose days of paid leave), they will have to take an average of 1.7 extra days off in 2012. Is that scary or what?

The piece also included the completely unsourced assertion that few people believe that the 35 hour work week has led to increased employment by dividing up jobs. The people who do not believe that the shorter work week created jobs must believe that the 35 hour work week led to sharp increases in productivity. If workers can produce the same amount in 35 hours as they did in 39 hours (the previous standard work week in France), it would imply an 11 percent increase in productivity.

This would be an astonishing gain in productivity. Economists view productivity as the primary determinant of living standards. Productivity growth is the whole point of all those great plans for tax cuts (usually for rich people) that people like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Paul Ryan keep throwing on the table. If NPR's sources are correct in their view, and shorter work weeks lead to massive gains in productivity (none of the tax cut bills are projected to lead to productivity gains of even one-fifth this size), then shorter work weeks could be a great way to both increase equality and improve growth: a classic win-win situation.

[Addendum: The transcript is now available. It seems that the 2 million days referred to a single hospital in Paris, not the entire hospital system.]

[Addendum 2: Andrew Watt has a more serious discussion of the impact of the 35-hour work week in France.

30 hour workweek
written by sufferingsuccatash, January 18, 2012 5:43 AM

Kelloggs of Battle Creek started a 30 hour work week in the 1930's. It was designed to employ an extra 6 hour shift---so everyday 4 shifts worked 6 hours each around the clock. This was done when the family owned the company, lived in Battle Creek, and sought to solve the unemployment problems in that area due to the depression. The result was that productivity went up and work accidents went down. Kellogg kept the 6 hour shifts for 50 years phasing this work schedule out when the company went public and bankers from Chicago started making the corporate decisions. Much has been written about this.

NPR, often thought to be a great bastion of liberal bias, has become more of a laissez-faire market propagandist on economic discussions. At least I haven't heard Samuelson on their business news lately.

Overtime
written by Bart, January 18, 2012 7:08 AM

Isn't France's labor market difficult to break into, because of greater job security and general difficulties in firing? This could be why so much overtime is accrued by existing workers.

Also, hospital workers may be relatively poorly paid and therefore seek overtime. I'm pretty sure that French doctors a not as highly paid as ours.

...
written by St.Juste, January 18, 2012 7:43 AM

35 HOURS OF REAL WORK

Beats the American model of fiddling around in the office for 45 any day. Better home life, better personal health and fitness, more attention to work product, less hypocrisy!

...
written by freebird, January 18, 2012 8:28 AM

Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/...-overtime

Note that the 2-million is for a single public hospital in Paris, not for the entire nation.
Our company used to allow unlimited deferral so we also had workers who piled up several months of vacation days, but now this is capped at one month.

Dean,
written by S. D. Jeffries, January 18, 2012 8:28 AM

You keep expecting the right-wing politicians in this country and their spokespeople (which increasingly describes reporters on NPR) to be rational, even logical. They aren't. But they are excellent at spreading propaganda to bolster their arguments or scare the daylights out of people who don't have the time to do the research necessary to counter all their fallacious pronouncements. Pretty sweet deal if you're dishonest and corrupt.

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written by jamzo, January 18, 2012 9:01 AM

2 million hours comp time in a one hospital

i would like to know more about how the french implemented the 35 hour work week

how many new hires did the 4 hour work week cut generate?

are compensation time and overtime increaseing in lieu of hiring more people

Use-It-Or-Don't-Lose-It, Shirking and Productivity, Low-rated comment [Show]

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written by PeonInChief, January 18, 2012 10:48 AM

I heard the piece, and one worker put the problem clearly--that the hospital isn't hiring enough workers, and workers have been doing way too much overtime.

Overtime is a problem of management
written by McDruid, January 18, 2012 11:37 AM

Management decides how many workers to hire, how much to pay them, and what schedules they work.

Systemic overtime means one of three things:

(a) a rapidly growing company,
(b) a tight talent market, or
(c) incompetent management.

The press never admits that it is (c).

No source... and wrong numbers
written by D., January 18, 2012 11:57 AM

According to Le Monde http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/..._3224.html:

- since 2002, the 41'000 doctors have accumulated 2.1M days of overtime (half of the total accumulated by all employees --411'000-- in French hospitals)

Maybe that was the original source, which is not the same as 2.1M in just one hospital...

llll
written by mel in oregon, January 18, 2012 2:23 PM

oh izzato for christ's sake grow up. your idiotic rants mean nothing. try looking at all the ceos on wallstreet or in any major corporation that bankrupt a company & then get a golden parachute worth many millions if you want to talk about shirkers.

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written by charles, January 18, 2012 2:29 PM

Anyone who writes "stupid Liberals" after their comments doesn't care about knowledge or learning. I’m sorry this person is packed with so much anger.

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written by Kat, January 18, 2012 3:12 PM

For this sector of the labor market, shortening the week seems like just about the only way to increase productivity-- by helping to decrease mistakes (which is important in hospitals for other reasons that should be self evident). There are just so many patients that a staff member can take on before there are some real problems so you can't increase productivity by adding patients. And you can't just work faster.
They quote a nurse who is happier if not richer. I would add that she probably isn't poorer though. There are costs associated with increasing work hours. And, it has been my experience that those taking on overtime to increase their income often increase their spending accordingly. They are in trouble when overtime dries up.

Productivity and the optimum workweek
written by Luke Lea, January 18, 2012 8:36 PM

People can work faster for shorter periods of time, which is why American manufacturers might examine the idea of incentive-based work-sprints.

Productivity and the workweek.
written by Luke Lea, January 18, 2012 8:39 PM

Sorry, here is the link to incentive-based work-sprints:

http://facingzionwards.blogspot.com/2009/03/incentive-based-work-sprints.html

And maybe with less time at work they could put more time into their communities...
written by StanR, January 18, 2012 10:11 PM

It says something about the power of both anti-labor entities and their anti-labor rhetoric that there are so many good reasons for a shorter workweek (even one just a tiny bit shorter!) and yet here we are again...

izzatzo trolls and scores once again. I thought supply side shirkers was just too silly to be taken seriously, but lo and behold, those two magic words work wonders again.

Any addendum 3 !?
written by D., January 19, 2012 5:45 AM

Hopefully regular readers of this blog will have noticed that what the piece actually says--

[Addendum: The transcript is now available. It seems that the 2 million days referred to a single hospital in Paris, not the entire hospital system.]

--does not make more sense than this post's original interpretation of it.

For the not-too-lazy reader: the Vaugirard - Gabriel-Pallez hospital represents 437 fulltime jobs http://www.aphp.fr/index.php?m...ail&obj=43. Is it plausible that they have accumulated 2M days overtime in less than 10 years?*

*Answer: no.

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written by Robert Waldmann, January 21, 2012 9:16 AM

One must always think twice before typing "must". Those who believe that the 35 hours bill has not caused higher employment, might believe that it coused lower GDP not higher productivity.

Having warned myself, I will be careful not to type that you must believe that a 35 minute work week bill must cause a huge increase in employment and/or a huge increase in productivity. I am sure there is some way you assert this about 35 hours and not assert it about 35 minutes, but I must admit that I can't think of one at the moment.

NPR Doesn't Like the 35 Hour Work-Week in France

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