Americans work more than anyone in the industrialized world. 
 
 More than the English, more than the French, way more than the Germans or Norwegians. Even, recently, more than the Japanese. 
 
 And Americans take less vacation, work longer days, and retire later, too. 
 
 That much most people agree on. What's harder to pin down is exactly how much Americans are working. It may be more than our industrialized competitors, but is it more than we have ever worked before? 
 
 The short answer, according to the government, is that it is only slightly more and not so much that most people should really notice. 
 
 Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a very gradually rising trend through the 1990s that has only just recently tapered off, hovering somewhere just north of 40 hours weekly. 
 
 A Month More a Year? 
 
 The long answer is, of course, more complicated. It depends who you ask, and about whom you're asking. 
 
 Author Juliet Schor, who wrote the best-selling book The Overworked American in 1992, concluded that in 1990 Americans worked an average of nearly one month more per year than in 1970. 
 
 There are also volumes of surveys that ask people if they're working more than they used to. Generally, people say yes, of course they are. And they also estimate almost 10 more hours a week than the government does. 
 
 A Bunch of Whiners? 
 
 Critics pooh-pooh such studies, saying self-estimators are exaggerators, although most of those studies echo the same general trend as governmental figures — a bit of a rise through the '90s with a slight dip recently. 
 
 Dissenters to overworked-American theories say it's better to base studies on employers' reports of worker hours, which is what the government does, but that leaves out overtime hours worked by salaried employees. 
 
 Critics also point to what they say is a growing number of part-time jobs. How can people be working more if they are not working full-time? 
 
 Here's where you have to ask which workers we're really talking about. 
 
 Measuring Past the Punch Clock 
 
 That's what Schor's book tries to do, as well as two recent releases: The White-Collar Sweatshop by Jill Andresky Fraser, and The Working Life by Joanne B. Ciulla. 
 
 All those books have been embraced by a large part of the public that apparently feels harassed by the pressures of the workplace. 
 
 The authors all find evidence that many Americans are overstressed and overworked in trends that are not necessarily measured with a punch clock; trends such as road rage, workplace shootings, the rising number of children in day care and increasing demands for after-school activities to occupy children whose parents are too busy or still at work. 
 
 They aren't the only ones finding long hours in at least certain parts of the workforce. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released last year, more than 25 million Americans — 20.5 percent of the total workforce — reported they worked at least 49 hours a week in 1999. Eleven million of those said they worked more than 59 hours a week. 
 
 Sweat Under the White Collar 
 
 Who are these people? Fraser, after four years of interviews, concludes they are white-collar workers, who do not punch a clock and whose hours therefore are the most difficult to track. 
 
 The other evidence often pointed to that people are not really working as much as they say is the increasing number of part-time jobs. How can people be working more if more people are not working full-time? 
 
 But the anecdotal evidence presented by Fraser, Schor and Ciulla — and met by millions of people everyday — is that many Americans feel they are working more than ever. 
 
 An ABCNEWS.com poll released Monday found only 26 percent of Americans feel they work too hard. Although far more feel the opposite, that's still a lot of people and it's twice as many as the 13 percent who told a Harris Poll in 1960 that they felt overworked. And the percentage rises to about a third of people with kids, or people between 35 and 54 years old. 
 
 What Happened to 'The Little Woman'? 
 
 Even for people who are not actually working longer hours than they used to, there's an explanation for why some of them might feel over-burdened anyway, particularly men. 
 
 Experts who accept some of the arguments of both sides of the working-longer debate often focus less on individuals' hours worked, instead looking at household hours on the job. 
 
 In Overworked and Underemployed, a study in The American Prospect, Barry Bluestone and Stephen Rose argue that to really understand the situation Americans face, you need to look beyond individuals and numbers. 
 
 The overall figures for how many hours a week the average American works have been held down by the increasing number of part-time service and retail jobs in the economy. But since many of the part-time jobs have been filled by the increasing number of women in the workforce, and many of these women had previously been housewives, there are fewer hours when anyone is taking care of household chores. 
 
 Instead of coming home to find the refrigerator and cupboards stocked, dinner ready, the table set, the clothes washed, the house clean and the children entertained, men are coming home and finding they have to chip in, because their wives aren't "the little woman," anymore. They are now sharing duties as breadwinner, which means men have to share household chores. The situation is exaggerated when both spouses work full-time — particularly if they don't earn enough to hire help. 
 
 If people aren't spending quite as many more hours at work as they think they are, the fact that they aren't allowed as much leisure time once they're off work might account for the apparent illusion. 
 
 Authors like Fraser, Schor and Ciullo, though, argue that there is no illusion, and the case made by the harried Americans who fill their books — and fill commuter trains and highways — is hard to discount. ||||| Photo courtesy Maciej Serafinowicz/Unsplash 
 
 Jason Freedman was looking to hire a new employee at his startup, and he knew just the applicant he wanted for the job. The only problem was that the candidate’s current gig had left him frustrated and exhausted to the point of burnout, which was why he was on the market. 
 
 “Every other company he was talking to was asking, ‘How soon can you start?’ ” says Freedman, co-founder and CEO of 42Floors, a San Francisco-based commercial real estate search engine. Freedman wanted the guy, but he didn’t want him coming in haggard and beleaguered. So he made him a job offer with one stipulation: The candidate had to take a two-week paid vacation—before his first day. Delighted and relieved, the candidate accepted. 
 
 Will Oremus Will Oremus is Slate’s senior technology writer. Email him at will.oremus@slate.com or follow him on Twitter. 
 
 “We called it a pre-cation,” Freedman says. “It was only a couple of weeks, but he just came in so refreshed and energized, it was amazing.” 
 
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 Freedman decided to begin offering pre-cations to all his new hires. “The day they get their offer letter, it’s kind of like Christmas morning, in that they have a new job and they’ve already thought through the vacation they’re about to go on. We have a guy who’s about to start next week, and he’s in Thailand right now. It’s like, ‘Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off.’ ” 
 
 Yet many of us, especially in competitive fields, are hesitant to take even the relatively small amount of vacation to which our jobs entitle us. Our work ethic remains a point of pride even as it saps our energy and enthusiasm for the job. 
 
 Some well-off employers, including many Silicon Valley startups, have responded by offering their workers unlimited vacation. Atlassian, a San Francisco- and Sydney-based enterprise software company, does not track vacation days for its 300-plus U.S. employees. Yet it says it has seen no significant uptick in the total amount of time its workers take off. 
 
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 So, like 42Floors, it gives them a little push, handing every new hire a travel voucher and encouraging them to take a trip before their first day. Atlassian dreamed up the idea in 2010 as part of a revamped recruitment campaign designed to spend less on recruiters and more on things that would directly benefit new hires. 
 
 “We want people to bring their best every day, and we want them here for the long haul,” says Jeff Diana, Atlassian’s chief people officer. “Changing jobs is an important shift, and we want to give people time to recharge, spend some time with family. Because once you start a new job, you kind of jump all in.” 
 
 Pre-cation policies may come at a price that not every company can afford. 
 
 The pre-cation policy flows from Atlassian’s view that memorable perks and a livable workspace make for happy employees without busting the company’s budget. Company bonding events like barbecues at San Francisco Giants games are frequent and well-attended. After five years of service, employees are asked to take another break and given $3,000 toward the vacation of their dreams. And instead of end-of-year cash bonuses, top performers get personalized packages delivered to their houses. The packages include fancy chocolates, confetti poppers, bottles of Champagne, and a hand-written letter from a superior about what makes the employee so valuable. Oh, and they come with grants of equity in the company. 
 
 The thoughtful touches make such an impression that they sometimes overshadow the monetary rewards in employees’ minds, Diana says. “People have the letters framed on their mantle. I have to ask them two or three times, ‘Great, so what did you think about the equity?’ ” 
 
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 Atlassian’s “high-touch” approach to human resources has made it a mainstay of “best places to work” lists in both the U.S. and Australia. The company tells me that “regrettable attrition” rates for its employees are in the single digits, and 90 percent of respondents in an employee survey said they hoped to remain with Atlassian for a long time. 
 
 It would probably be premature to call the “pre-cation” a trend. While there are probably a few others out there, Atlassian and 42Floors are the only companies I could find that offer it, and both say that they came up with the idea independently; neither had heard of any others offering the same perk. 
 
 David Lewin, professor emeritus at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, says the concept is a new one to him as well. But it reminds him of a somewhat similar practice that’s common among companies that hire MBA graduates: “Especially in economic growth periods as opposed to recessions, they will negotiate over their start date. It happened a lot in 2006 and ’07, it happened in the late ’90s, and it’s starting to happen again. It probably reflects the same underlying notion: ‘We’re working our butts off, and gee, wouldn’t it be good to have a couple months off to go do whatever one does with free time, and then start fresh and ready to roll?’ ” 
 
 Lewin is skeptical of the unlimited-vacation policies that have become de rigueur in the startup world. When you can take all the vacation you want, that means you can also take as little as you want, and employees might feel insecure or uncertain about how long they can afford to be away. As for the pre-cation policies, Lewin can see the appeal but notes that they may come at a price that not every company can afford. 
 
 If you ask Freedman of 42Floors how much his pre-cation program costs his 40-person company, however, you’ll get a surprising answer: zero. “The way you would calculate it would be the total dollars spent on paid time off,” he says. “But when I look at the overall amount of vacation time in the company, if anything I wish it was a little higher.”
– The last thing a company wants in a new hire is someone worn out from his former position, and two tech firms are creatively combating that. They're pushing their newly minted employees to take a "precation"—a vacation before their job actually begins. Indeed, San Francisco-based real estate search engine 42Floors went so far as to require it ("it" being two paid weeks off) for a new worker, Will Oremus reports at Slate. "We called it a precation,” the CEO says. “It was only a couple of weeks, but he just came in so refreshed and energized." Now, all new employees at the company get the opportunity. "It’s like, ‘Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off,'" the boss says. Software company Atlassian prods new workers to take precations, too. And those who stick with the company for five years are handed $3,000 to put toward their dream trip. While Oremus won't go so far as calling the precation a "trend"—42Floors and Atlassian were the only ones doing it that he found—he calls it the "perfect job perk for our overworked times." He notes, via ABC News, that Americans have the longest working days and take the least vacation of any nation in the developed world. "We deserve a break," he writes. The reality is that "many of us, especially in competitive fields, are hesitant to take even the relatively small amount of vacation to which our jobs entitle us." Read his full piece here.