Thirty-five Hours (Economic Self Destruction in France)

The Library of Economics and Liberty ^ | 15 June 2002 | Anthony de Jasay

[Stultis]

Visit this page on the website for links to other articles by de Jasay, including an online edition of his book The State.

[ReadMyMind]

With all the productivity gains from technology, why don't we get more time off? Do we want more stuff or more time?

Why is working 35 hours a week as opposed to 39 seen as a bad thing? I think the mandatory nature of it is irrational, but they must be thinking that it won't happen otherwise. Ideally, we'd all work about 24 hours a week with 12 weeks of total vacation.

[Stultis]

Who's got the ping list for articles on economics?

Here's another article I recently posted that might be worthy of a ping:

Economic Classics (Bastiat, von Mises & Ropke rule this Joint Economic Committee webpage)

[Stultis]

Why is working 35 hours a week as opposed to 39 seen as a bad thing? I think the mandatory nature of it is irrational, but they must be thinking that it won't happen otherwise.

The mandatory nature is the whole point. The individual being being dictated to by the state as to whether more time off, as opposed to larger paychecks or wider employment opportunities, is a "good thing" or a "bad thing" is the whole point. In a free society whether shorter work weeks will "happen otherwise" will be determined by the labor market and the choices and priorities of agents within it.

[Cobra64]

I'm an independent software consultant and I chose this profession because I have the right to decide how many hours a week/month/year that I want to work. I have the choice, not the STATE.

[ECM]

Amen! I'm a freelance writer (don't laugh--I have more work than I can handle every bloody week and the pay is probably better than many would surmise) and I completely concur with your statements.

[babble-on]

Someone asked the finance minister at the time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, what the impact of the transition to 35 hours for the public sector workers would be. He responded, "Well it will be something of a shock, so we plan on phasing the move in gradually for the public sector, first going to 31 hours and only when they are used to that bumping it up to 32."

[ECM]

Ideally, we'd all work about 24 hours a week with 12 weeks of total vacation.

Yes, and ideally we'd all love our jobs and there would be peace and prosperity the world over :)

[DainBramage]

Seems almost a Socialism-lite. The masses work however the system dictates

and some of their income is spread to others that don't work via the government

through taxation.

Oh wait... thats only a hop, skip, and a jump from what we have now.

[WindMinstrel]

Why don't the socialist surrendermonkeys see what they're doing to their economy I wonder? The French are turning into a footnote in history.

[Calvin Coolidge]

Advocates of the 35-hour week share with advocates of increases in mimimum wages a total ignorance of basic economics.

"France railroaded through a law reducing the "legal" work week from 39 to 35 hours with maintained weekly pay, and severely penalising overtime. This represented a rise of over 11 per cent in hourly labour costs"

So, for any of you who have taken Econ101. What will be the effect on the demand for labor of an 11% increase in its price?

That's right! When the price of something goes up, the quantity demanded will go ... DOWN!!! Resulting, over time, in fewer total hours worked. Companies will shift to less labor-intensive means of production. Purchase more equipment in order to increase productivity among existing workers. etc.

Letting policy makers create economic policy based on such a fundamental ignorance of basic science is tantamount to designing a new airplane without any consideration of the law of gravity.

[babble-on]

it does have to be said that the frogs were not completely stupid. They are tricky people and they tricked their unions with this. They threw out the entire labor code with this law. Suddenly temporary work and part time non-union jobs started springing up. Also, the 35 hours is an average over the course of the year. So during quiet times of the year you can send people home with a 30 hour week and then make them work 45 hour weeks during the peak times, WITHOUT PAYING OVERTIME. Labor costs have not gone up dramatically in France. It was liberalization by stealth.

[norraad]

There's another trick whereby they split the work week paydate so they can work you 6 days in a row but without overtime 'cause it's "spread" over 2 weeks .

..legal?

certainly not ethical.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

That shorter hours would increase employment was an evident logical consequence of the quantity theory of labour, which tells us, plausibly enough, that a given task will be performed either by fewer workers putting in longer hours or more workers putting in shorter ones.

If they truly believed this, then it was inhumane to merely lower the legal work week to 35 hours. They should have lowered it to zero. That would have produced 100% unemployment and a productivity factor of infinity.

What could be better than that?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I meant 100% employment.

[b-cubed]

Along with this they could raise the minimum wage to $100/hr. That way everybody would be rich and working full time.

[Stultis]

it does have to be said that the frogs were not completely stupid. They are tricky people and they tricked their unions with this. They threw out the entire labor code with this law. Suddenly temporary work and part time non-union jobs started springing up.

Very interesting observation. Please say more, if so inclined. Where are you getting your info?

[Rodney King]

The mechanism must be as foolproof as the Laffer curve, which tells you that as you reduce tax rates, the tax yield increases and approaches a maximum.

A great article except for this sentence. The Laffer curve says no such thing.

[A. Pole]

In contrast to her great strengths in mathematics and engineering, France has produced few economists of note

Comparing the unemployment rates is tricky since they are calculated differently in different countries. The rate for USA discounts many of those who exhausted their benefits.

Same with taxes. In Europe the equivalents of Social Security, federal, state, local taxes are added up.

[babble-on]

http://www.35h.travail.gouv.fr/texteang.htm

this is from the French government (in english), and while they are bragging about how wonderful it was for the workers, it's not hard to read between the lines. They threw out a stultifyingly complex labor law dating from the 1970's and instead took labor negotiations down to the firm and even the factory level as opposed to nationwide collective bargaining. Overtime starts after 1600 hours of employment.

I analyze European economic policies for a little consulting firm for my job, so I get to travel and talk to some of these ministers and bureaucrats. The last Socialist government had some incredibly sneaky and intelligent people working for them. Look up Jean Pisani-Ferry in addition to Strauss-Kahn. They definitely understood what their problem was, but they also knew they would never be able to convince the public, so they tricked them instead. 35 hours was a Trojan horse. Unlike the German SPD, who talked centrist but governed Left, the PS especially in economic policy up until DSK left talked Left, but governed reformist. Its not an accident that France is outperforming Germany on every economic measure now.