Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: Post mortem delle 35 ore francesi

Dopo il verdetto elettorale, qualche opportuna riflessione.
Bye bye, Albert
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Da:
Labours lost
Jun 13th 2002
From The Economist print edition
France's 35-hour work-week is fine, so long as it is voluntary
[...]
France's 35-hour law came into effect two years ago, imposing some of
the shortest working hours in the world. It requires French companies to
pay 39 hours' worth of wages for 35 hours of work. France's workers
might now be the envy of the world. Does the French model, though, make
for good economics? The answer is no?but it comes with a silver lining.
At the time of its introduction, most economists pronounced the law's
motivation?that if ea
ch employee works fewer hours, there will be more hours to share
around?to be nonsensical. The idea that a fixed quantity of work exists,
to be parcelled out among workers, is the so-called lump-of-labour
fallacy. France's own Frédéric Bastiat had pointed out two centuries ago
that there is no limit to the work that needs doing.
To be sure, there is no iron link between long hours and growing rich
(see chart). Americans' puritanical work ethic seems to have been
rewarded by a decade of fierce economic growth. On the other hand, for
the Japanese, once feared by the rest of the world for their six-day
weeks, economic misery has been the reward for the past decade's toil.
Britain, according to a recent study by the Economic and Social Research
Council, has some of the longest hours in Europe, yet with lower
productivity than its neighbours.
So give the French their due: le trente-cinq has defied the dire
predictions of many economists. French GDP growth averaged 3% per year
in 1998-2001, above the average for the euro area. And unemployment did
fall sharply after the law was brought in.
Yet the economists were not wrong. Productivity is the crux of arguments
in favour of shorter working hours. French employers, proponents say,
are now forced to use their workers' time more wisely. French
productivity, measured by output per hour, has indeed risen since 2000.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that shorter hours at the office are paid
for in fewer coffee breaks and smarter work habits. This is the silver
lining.
Big manufacturers, such as Renault and Peugeot, have even grown to love
the 35-hour work-week, for the greater flexibility they have derived
from it. They use it to increase production at tight times, while idling
workers during slack periods. Yet smaller firms, says Christel Rendu de
Lint of Morgan Stanley, are unlikely to reap similar gains when the new
law applies to them in full (it is being phased in gradually). Under
political pressure, the new French government may scrap the 35-hour law
for them altogether.
Ms Rendu de Lint points to another reason for France's relative success:
a decade-long trend towards more temporary and flexible work practices,
which has encouraged women to enter the workforce. That is all to the
good. Yet Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at the University of Toulouse,
adds that some of the increase in women's part-time work might be
because their husbands' wages are frozen thanks to the 35-hour law.
This, he says, hits poorest families hardest.
In sum, the productivity figures may be misleading. Restrictions on
hours mean that output per hour is bound to rise, as firms shed
lower-value, yet still profitable, tasks. France's output per worker,
however, has remained flat. What is more, the government bought big
employers' agreement to the law by offering tax breaks. These tax cuts
would have helped to bring down unemployment even had there been no
35-hour law.
Under the law, the trade-off between work and leisure is, in effect,
made by the French state, with unexpected results. French trade unions,
for example, were some of the biggest backers of the 35-hour work-week;
now they mostly oppose it. A manual labourer gets less overtime pay and
less choice over when to take his time off; while a lawyer working long
hours each week gets nine weeks of holidays.
As Parkinson might have predicted, the biggest winners may be state
workers. They face no competition and inelastic demand for their
services. With a quarter of French workers employed by the state?the
largest share in Europe?the 35-hour week may serve merely to increase
their ranks, says Mr Saint-Paul, eroding private-sector productivity
gains.
Even so, bosses in other countries might take a lesson from France. In
some industries, reducing working hours in exchange for flexibility may
be a spur to productivity. This is arguably hardest in services, though
not impossible: even journalists find that work expands to fill
available hours.
Instead of a new law, though, managers and workers might do better to
resolve not to waste time. A final thought, courtesy of Mr Parkinson,
for those dreaming of a summer holiday: ?It is the busiest man who has
time to spare.?
-- 
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Dopo il verdetto elettorale, qualche opportuna riflessione.
Le amministrative? Certo, è evidente che la gente ha giudicato un
fallimento un anno di governo Berlusconi.
Waku waku!

 Waku waku!
Bye bye, Albert
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