Posted on 07/14/2007 5:49:07 AM PDT by Clive
DIEPPE, France -It's 2:15 on a French afternoon, and I am as usual at this time of day sitting in a cafe waiting to pay the bill for lunch. And waiting. And waiting. When you hear talk of the slowness of French meals, you may imagine haughty waiters languidly presenting an elegant meal. I am sure that happens too. But as it happens, I am not anywhere elegant. I am sitting in a very unremarkable seafood restaurant by the harbour in Dieppe.
There is nothing languid about the scene here. The patronne is racing about like a demon, taking orders, slapping down plates of fish, planting bottles of wine on the table with a thump.
She has to move fast. There are almost 30 tables in this place, and she has only one assistant. The two of them do everything that must be done in the front room. They clear tables, they bus dishes and, if you look at the mirror at the right angle, you can see them scraping plates and placing them in a dishwashing machine. At the moment when I decide I want a cheque, the assistant is at the back polishing newly washed glasses.
Why only two? The minimum wage in France is ?8.50. Another ?4.25 in payroll tax is applied on top of that wage, for a total minimum cost of hiring of ?12.75, or more than $18.35 Canadian.
The law forbids employees to work more than 35 hours per week. Period. No overtime; it's just flatly forbidden. French law guarantees generous mandatory holidays of up to six weeks. Firing employees is extraordinarily difficult, so you have to assume that anyone you hire will stay hired until he or she tires of the job.
Understandably, then, French small businesses shave their staffs to the absolute bare minimum and work them at frenzied speed.
You might call this a form of efficiency. (Efficient for the restaurant, that is, not for me; I'd rather be touring the sights.) But it is a very strange form of efficiency for a country struggling against some of the severest unemployment in the developed world.
Per hours worked, the French rank among the most productive people on Earth: 7% more productive than Americans, for example. But the devil lies in the phrase "per hours worked."
Almost 10% of France's work force lacks jobs. France's economy is not in recession; in fact, it is thriving. High unemployment
has become normal here; not since the 1980s has France seen an unemployment rate south of 8%.
And remember, the unemployment concept counts only those persons who seek work. Those who retire early, or who qualify as disabled, or remain in school until age 30 do not count as "unemployed" in the job statistics. Only in life. The truest picture of French society comes from counting those in work: Altogether, 51% of French adults work, as opposed to 62% of American adults.
And those French who do work do not work very much: While working Americans work an average of more than 1,800 hours per year, working French people put in slightly more than 1,500, more than their supposedly workaholic German counterparts, but less than the Swedes or Italians.
Some left-wing economists suggest that this low work effort reflects a laudable French preference for leisure over sordid commerce.
But that harried patronne in Dieppe did not seem to be enjoying much leisure. If it cost less to hire a worker, maybe she would have hired somebody to help her clear the dishes. Then she would have had time to wander over during lunch and ask me whether I would have liked a second glass of wine. But she was too busy, so the wine remained unpoured and the five euros she might have earned remain in my pocket.
Well, maybe I could afford to do without the extra wine. Can France afford to keep missing economic opportunities? The gross domestic product of the 60 million people of France now roughly equals that earned by the 35 million people of California (using purchasing power parity valuations for the dollar and the euro). Over time, little differences compound into big ones. The Democratic economist Robert Shapiro calculates that, if present trends persist, the average European will see his standard of living decline to about half that of the average American by 2025.
France's new president, Nicholas Sarkozy, has vowed to address these problems. He proposes to adjust the 35-hour maximum and has famously called on the French to "go back to work." Outsiders can easily misunderstand those words. The French are not lazy.
Those who work, work hard. But too many of them are legislated out of work by the laws meant to help them. It is those laws that must change if France is to thrive again -- and if I am ever to get my cheque.
David Frum ping.
It’s wrong to be French.
This is a post Hillary presidency view of America’s future.
Sigh.
I am so glad to see someone say this. That French workers are slightly more productive per hour worked than Americans is one of the most misleading economic statistics, and this article shows why. In addition to the problems at this restaurant, in less labor-intensive work there is a huge incentive to substitute machines for workers. Those who remain are very productive; those who jobs are destroyed have productivity of zero, but aren't counted.
This is a brilliant reform. France is about to see its economy turbocharged.
If the government subsidizes something, then you can expect to get more of it. In this case, the harried workers who are working so hard to keep the employment head-count down, will now be provided an incentive to work even more hours.
The incremental economic incentive is presumably going to come from existing government revenues.
Let's presume that the restaurant in the article is open 70 hours per week. That means that it would be staffed by two 35-hour waitresses for each of two work-shifts.
If we suppose that the restaurant owner is better off under the new system, then we might see him shed an entire shift. The remaining two waitresses will then provide the same level of service that presently exists for the full 70 hours. Two waitresses will be highly paid. Two will become unemployed. The employer will see little net change and the government will give up revenue which might previously have been used to pay unemployment to waitresses.
The unemployment rate might increase to include as much as half of the present work-force. It is only the unhappiness of that large unemployed and income-less group that will force a change to the new system, probably back to where they presently are.
Existing government revenues won't change. The extra hours now worked will not provide the government with additional future revenues.
If we suppose that the restaurant owner is better off under the new system, then we might see him shed an entire shift. The remaining two waitresses will then provide the same level of service that presently exists for the full 70 hours. Two waitresses will be highly paid. Two will become unemployed. The employer will see little net change and the government will give up revenue which might previously have been used to pay unemployment to waitresses.
Sarkozy's proposal is a pure, unadulterated supply-side inducement to increase production. It will allow people to work (produce) more and allow them to keep everything they earn above 35 hours. A very powerful inducement, indeed.
As the author mentioned, had the owner been less harried she might have convinced him to have dessert and another glass of wine. As it is, she lost several euros of income and profit.
Why Sarkozy's proposal would spur a business owner to cut his hours in half and lay off 2 employees is beyond me and hasn't proved the case when marginal tax rates have been cut in the U.S.
In my example, the government loses all payroll taxes associated with the two waitresses that are no longer employed.
One thing I like about the French system is we idle a lot in the american workplace or create ‘work’ not related to the job at hand.
For example I’ve worked in sales in the past, getting paid only commission. 90% of the sales were during about 10 hours of the week. So I ended up only working 15 hours a week for a few years, and my income was about the same as my old income working 35 hours a week. When I was there I was happy, well rested, could understand the customer better.
It felt strange though like I didn’t actually have a job! Well in other jobs I’ve worked in my life I’ve seen similiar although not as extreme examples where people could work say half as much and make 80% of the money, by only focusing on the high value work.
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