That's (surprisingly, to me) not the main point of the article- the point is that if more people take more vacation time then companies will have to hire more employees to ensure the same level of base coverage and voila job creation!

A shorter working week would accomplish something similar. You can phase it in by mandating OT pay for hourly employees after 40h, then 35h, then 30h. Eventually, salaried jobs will catch up.

Have we not learned anything from France? That was the exact same argument made for the 35 hour workweek and it had no positive effect on unemployment rates. It's a ridiculous idea. We have unemployment chronically above 10% both with a 35 hour week and generous vacation and leave.

Would it surprise you to learn that France has a much higher employed proportion of their population than the US?

http://i.imgur.com/g9NA76s.png

An extra 5% of working age employment in the US would mean something like 7M more jobs.

Would you have less unemployment with a 40 hour work week? An 80 hour work week?

I could imagine why that would be the case.

The more important question is, how are similar countries that didn't adopt the 35 hour week doing?

A better example could be more vacation should lower stress induced health problems, which could mean lower premiums and less money going into the black hole that is the US healthcare system.

Who pays for that vacation? France has very generous vacation and their economy is stagnant. They even have a 35 hour workweek established based in the same premise. It hasn't worked. The economy is growing less than under Sarkozy.

We could also make the argument that cutting taxes would spur more spending. If you increase my disposable income, I'll buy some new studio monitors and an Allen & Heath mixer.

Just increasing vacation time results in a higher labor cost and thus raises prices, negating the benefit.

France's 'standard of living' (measured in material goods) is quite high globally-speaking and not significantly lower than that of the USA.

If you include intangibles like quality healthcare and reasonable amounts of vacation time, then I'd argue that France is far wealthier than the US.

Germany also has very generous vacation, 12 months of paternity/maternity leave, etc... and their economy is doing just fine.

I guarantee if you asked Americans if they would trade their 2.5% (or whatever) economic growth for Germany's 1% in exchange for 20 days guaranteed vacation per year, most would say "hell yes". The people who wouldn't take the trade are those rich enough to not need the vacation.

It has not been shown that higher labor costs raise prices a significant amount. During the debate over Seattle raising wages, it was shown that increased wages would add very little to the cost of fast food meals.

Those simple minded fools with their 35 hour work week, healthcare, paternity leave and 30 days holiday ! Who are they fooling?

Not me, I'm going to buy some expensive speakers