An International Labour Organisation (ILO) study shows the average American worked 1,978 hours in the year 2000, up from 1,942 hours in 1990. The report also shows that the average Australian, Canadian, Japanese and Mexican worker puts in about 100 hours (or about two and a half weeks) less work than the average American. The British and Brazilians work about 250 hours (over five weeks) less per year while Germans work nearly 500 hours (about 12.5 weeks) less than Americans.

(Workers in South Korea and the Czech Republic spend considerably longer at their jobs than Americans, but the ILO does not include these nations in its list of "industrialised countries").

The figures: French workers produce an average of $US33.71 of value added per hour, compared with $32.98 in Belgium and $32.84 in the US.

Shor: "All the direction seems to be for longer hours. In expansions, companies keep giving more work to their workers, and in recessions, there will be downsizing and fewer people working, but the workers who remain will have to work longer hours to retain their jobs…"

Observers say that the KILM report will be a significant contribution to these discussions because it breaks new ground by focusing on a broad, comprehensive set of global indicators to analyse labour markets, rather than just study one indicator such as unemployment. (The wider indicators include: labour force participation, employment by sector and status, informal sector employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours worked, wages and earnings, labour productivity, and poverty.) For more information on the KILM report, contact the ILO website at www.ilo.org

Over the next decade, the world's labour force is expected to grow by another 500 million people ... an expansion which the ILO argues could be both an opportunity and a challenge. The ILO : "The productive contribution of these men and women has the potential to spur growth and prosperity throughout the world. The ILO is convinced this promise can only be realised if employment becomes the central focus of economic and social policies at regional, national and international levels. Otherwise, the risk is that many of the new entrants will join the unemployed and working poor…"

Sources — "Key Indicators of the Labour Market 2001-2002" (KILM) report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) due for release in November 2001; press releases from www.ilo.org "New ILO Study Shows Us Workers Put In Longest Hours"; New York Times 1 September 2001 "Long hours — it's the American Way"; Guardian Weekly 6 September 2001 "US workers suffer labour pains as they put in record hours at work" by Michael Ellison; Reuters 1 September 2001 "Bush a role model for champions of more time off"; Statistics NZ Labour Market Statistics 2000 Table 7.15 "Annual Hours of Work";

The study, called Fifty Families, was undertaken by researchers at the Universities of Sydney and Adelaide. It looked at workers and their families who experience "unreasonable" working hours. These include very long hours, changes in time zones, irregular shift work, unpredictable hours or combinations of these.

Burrow reports that the trade union movement is putting "hours of work" and "fatigue" on the political agenda. While workplaces over the last decade have been deregulated and restructured, often many times, to enhance management "flexibility" … she says it has been harder for trade unions to have an influence on these important health and safety issues.

— The Fifty Families report can be downloaded in PDF format from the ACTU website at www.actu.asn.au

Sources — Sydney Morning Herald 5 September 2001 "A nation of work, stress and no play" by Adele Horin and Vanessa Wilson; ACTU website; Fifty Families report; National Forum on Hours of Work and Fatigue Sydney 20 September 2001.

The new working hours were introduced in January last year when all French firms with more than 20 employees were required to renegotiate their labour contracts. In exchange for the 35-hr week, the workers have generally been willing to accept a more flexible allocation of their work time, along with some wage restraint. The government has given businesses incentives to employ new low-wage workers by subsidising the social payments paid by employers (to contribute to superannuation, healthcare, accident compensation and unemployment benefits).

The results have been impressive: unemployment in France has fallen from 13% in 1997, to a 9% this year. The French Employment Minister Elizabeth Guigou reports that the year 2000 was the best in terms of job creation for a century. While strong economic growth has created the majority of these new jobs, the Jospin government attributes about one fifth of the improvement directly to the 35-hr week measures.

Examples: Samsonite workers, who manufacture luggage, have agreed to work 42 hours a week in the summer, when the demand for luggage is high, in exchange for 32 hours a week in the Winter. At Carrefour, the French retail giant, cashiers have agreed to adjust their duties and work times in accordance to the number of customers in the store.

French health unions say that the promise of recruiting an extra 40,000 new nurses to plug the holes left by the shorter week cannot be fulfilled … and warns that the situation will lead to healthcare chaos. French hospitals are already short of 10-15,000 staff, mainly nurses. A public hospital administrator in Paris told the Guardian: "My staff routinely work extra hours every week, and never take time off in lieu. We can't even operate a 39-hr week as we are supposed to. Talk of a 35-hr week is fantasy…"

Sources — Centre on the United States and France Analysis January 2001 "France's 35-hr work week — flexibility through regulation"; Guardian Weekly 2 April 2001 "Le weekend gets longer and longer"; Christian Science Monitor 16 April 2001 "French workers formula for not getting fried" by Keren Lentschner; Guardian Weekly 13 September 2001 "35-hr week risks French health chaos"