I found this Forbes list rather interesting: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/28/hardest-working-countries-lifestyle-realestate-hardest-working.html 8. Australia 8. United Kingdom 7. United States 6. Norway 5. Sweden 4. Canada 3. Denmark 2. Switzerland 2. New Zealand 1. Iceland Is it just a coincidence (and prejudice) that all of these are predominately Caucasian nations? Scandinavian countries also seem to dominate. Personally I think these countries are representative of the most financially developed welfare states (aside the U.S., Australia, and perhaps New Zealand). The study could be fairly biased and unscientific considering the list is derived from employment statistics of the mean population. There are factory workers in China and elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia where they put in 13 hr shifts. I assume agricultural workers were also not included. Doesn't seem logical that Japan and Germany are missing... two of the world's most productive economies. I would take the Japanese labor force over the American one any day.
yeah it'd say the Japanese and the Chinese are the hardest working of any folk, with the Japanese at #1. they work very hard and due to the world economic systems in place, we americans enjoy the fruits of their labor putting in relatively little work/effort of our own.
Japan. Made a couple of trips to Tokyo for meetings at Mitsubishi. I was stunned at the long hours and little sleep these people get. The consolation is that they appear to go out to restaraunts every night and get plenty hammered. At 2 AM on a Tuesday night Tokyo streets were jammed with traffic and filled with smiling well-dressed inebriated people stumbling about. Like Disneyland for adults, sort of. Also, almost no married women work in Tokyo, I shit you not. Almost all the women you see during the day are single. The japanese work hard and play hard.
I was also fortunate to visit Japan several years ago. I saw about four different parts of Tokyo that rivaled Times Square. Culturally, their citizens are ingrained to work. Laziness is really looked down upon. I remember when I studied traditional Japanese culture, there was actually a time where the men valued business higher than their families. Obviously that is changing now, but after WWII that's how business operated. The corporation was their first family. I've also heard that the Mitsubishi family has the most political clout in all of Japan. And yea, the Japanese love to drink. It's great how a couple of shots get them completely wasted.
Norway, Sweden and Denmark are ahead of us? Aren't they the dreaded SOCIALISTS! Maybe if we go SOCIALIST we'll work harder too.
Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world no? I have a friend who works at Toyota and when they have Japanese coming to europe to work and live for one or 2 years most of them never want to leave their nice home with a nice garden to go back to their 2 square feet apartment back in Toyota city. Quite a few of them settle for a lot lower wages at rival company's or other businesses they can get in to just as long as they don't have to go back. It almost sounds as if they were Cuban ballplayers at times.
I don't beleive this report. Either Forbes screwed up their analysis or the Paris organization manipulated the data. The story reads more like who has the lowest unemployment among the 15 to 24 age group.
Socialism works in those countries. Scandinavian countries consistently rank the highest in the quality of life standard. Norway was #1 several years in a row. They also receive the lowest corruption scores. I think its because they have a homogeneous population and their are cultural norms where aspects like over-spending, greed, laziness, etc. are looked down upon. Socialism wouldn't ever work in a country like the U.S., however, because people would be attempting to take advantage of the system. It's nothing bad, but America is all about individualism whereas Scandinavian countries its more about collectivism and the community.