Running on Empty: So Much Work, So Little Time (fwd)

Stephen E Philion philion at hawaii.edu
Sun Sep 5 17:58:28 PDT 1999


Check out the comments of the economists re: the validity of relyingon workers' accounts of how many hours they're working....gotta love that ol' predilection for objectivity...

Steve

NY Times September 5, 1999

Running on Empty: So Much Work, So Little Time

______________________________________________________________

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

T he much-acclaimed economic expansion, now in its ninth year, has

blessed Americans with a cornucopia of good things -- rising

incomes, the lowest jobless rate in three decades and Wall Street

prices going through the roof. Many Americans have used the good

times to renovate their kitchens or take that trip to Tuscany, but

others are still finding the boom a lot less satisfying than might

be expected.

[090599work-hours-review.1.GIF]

_________________________________________________________________

For many Americans this Labor Day, the sentiment seems to be, we're

earning more, but enjoying it less.

The reason is simple: too much work. With the economy going like

gangbusters and with a labor shortage in much of the country, many

Americans are reluctantly clocking 60-hour weeks to do the

mountains of work that need to be done -- designing that Web page,

getting out that legal brief, finishing those architectural

renderings.

For many Americans, the 40-hour week has become a fond memory.

Juliet Schor, the Harvard professor who wrote the 1992 book "The

Overworked American" (Basic Books), said in an interview that if

she were to write a sequel it might be called "The Even More

Overworked American." Indeed, a new study by the International

Labor Organization found that the number of hours Americans work

each year has climbed skyward while working hours in most other

industrial countries are falling. This trend has given Americans

the dubious distinction of moving into first place in the number of

hours worked each year (1,966), surpassing even the Japanese by

about 70 hours. On average, Americans work 350 hours more per year

(that's almost nine full work weeks) than Europeans.

"There are a lot of things going on," said Professor Schor.

"Americans are working harder, which is common when the economy is

doing well. And a lot of today's jobs require longer hours:

management jobs, professionals working long hours at firms because

that's what it takes to succeed in these firms. Some people are

working harder because there's a lot of money to be made at the

moment. But for a lot of people, excessive working time is a major

problem."

This explosion in hours worked has some little-understood pros and

some well-known cons. On the positive side, it has helped keep the

United States at the head of the pack in productivity.

America's economy produces more value per worker per year than any

other nation's, enabling the United States to enjoy living

standards that make most of the world envious.

In a subtle way, the boom in working hours has also helped keep

inflation down. Millions of salaried Americans -- software

designers, lawyers, factory managers -- are clocking 50- , 60- and

70-hour work weeks even though on paper they officially work just

40 hours. These workers often do not put in for overtime pay, and

the result is that they are making a quiet, below-the-radar

contribution to the economy. If a Web site designer puts in a

70-hour week, but is officially working only 40 hours, that helps

raise the important gauge of productivity per hour. This,

economists say, has contributed to the recent rise in the nation's

productivity rate, up 2 percent last year from a sluggish 1 percent

per year over the previous two decades. This boost, also fueled by

heavy corporate investment in computers, has enabled American

industry to keep profits high without having to resort to raising

prices.

But talk to a few workers who just punched out after a 12-hour day,

and they'll tell you that 60-hour weeks have their downside as

well. Auto workers, telephone workers and others are howling about

too much overtime, with many workers being forced to put in 15 or

20 extra hours a week. In recent months, many labor negotiations

have grown heated over union demands to eliminate mandatory

overtime -- something many corporations are loath to do when the

4.2 percent jobless rate makes it hard to find new workers.

Little wonder that recent surveys show many Americans complaining

that they do not have enough time to spend with their families.

Professor Schor expressed surprise that in a recent poll more than

20 percent of Americans said they would happily accept lower

incomes in exchange for working fewer hours. Even as many

stressed-out workers are deliberately reducing their hours, the

Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that 19 percent of Americans

report working more than 49 hours a week, up from 16 percent in

1985.

"A very significant group, roughly a third of the labor force, is

working more hours than they want," said Professor Schor. "They are

feeling high levels of time pressure and stress. They feel their

job interferes with their family life." She said stress is being

experienced in particular by baby boom workers.

_________________________________________________________________

A misty longing for the 40-hour week.

_________________________________________________________________

Probably the biggest reason for workers feeling overextended,

economists say, is that in many families the parents, taken

together, are working longer hours. The Economic Policy Institute,

a liberal research group, has found that together, parents in

middle-class families work 3,335 hours per year on average, up from

3,200 a decade ago and just over 3,000 hours two decades ago.

That's an increase of eight weeks of work per year since 1979. The

main reason for the surge, economists say, is not so much that men

are working longer hours, but that women are -- in large part to

keep family incomes climbing while hourly wages, after accounting

for inflation, have largely stagnated for the past 25 years.

Millions of women who used to work part time have moved into

full-time jobs.

"Much of the economic gains in the current economic recovery comes

from people working more hours, rather than higher hourly wages,"

said Lawrence Mishel, vice president of the Economic Policy

Institute.

The overtime boom has created another source of tensions. Many

corporate executives are unhappy about dishing out millions of

dollars each week in time-and-a-half pay for overtime. As a result

many companies are doing an end run around overtime laws by, for

example, hiring thousands of workers as independent contractors who

do not have to be paid time-and-a-half for every hour they work

over 40.

Sociologists and economists see several factors behind the longer

work week. The economy is shifting from manufacturing to services,

and service workers do not watch the clock the way manufacturing

workers do. Many companies, notably software makers, now emphasize

"project" work. Corporate culture demands completing projects by a

deadline, often requiring workers to put in 90-hour weeks to

finish, say, the latest CD-ROM.

Some economists question whether Americans are working more hours

per week, saying the statistics rely too much on workers' own

accounts. Many economists also say it has grown harder to measure

how many hours people work because of the explosion of beepers and

cell phones as well as computers and faxes at home.

"Nowadays you go to a social gathering and you see a lot of people

wearing beepers, and at a baseball game you see all these people

with their cell phones, in many cases still connected to work,"

said Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton University labor economist.

"It's gotten far more difficult to measure where work ends and

leisure begins."

_________________________________________________________________

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