Americans Are Working Much Longer Hours Than the French and Germans

Re:Americans Are Working Much Longer Hours Than the French a... by kaushalp88 on Sunday April 26, 2015 @04:46AM (#9441051)

Couple of things.

1. There is very little context for this graph, and "Average Hours Worked by Persons Engaged" is not defined very well.

2. What happened in Germany in ~1975 that made them suddenly start working?

3. Where is this data being sourced from?

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Re:Americans Are Working Much Longer Hours Than the French a... by more_original on Sunday April 26, 2015 @06:22AM (#9441246)

> 2. What happened in Germany in ~1975 that made them suddenly start working?

I think it may have been the oil crisis in 1973. During the crisis, industry did not have enough work for its workforce. Instead of mass-layoffs, they tried to shorten working hours and cut wages accordingly. I think in 1975 the situation had normalized again, so that working hours increased again.

So, rather than an increase in 1975, it's probably a decrease just before.

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Re:Americans Are Working Much Longer Hours Than the French a... by danboarder on Sunday April 26, 2015 @05:30AM (#9441139)

I didn't create the graph, but the data is consistent with what I've seen referenced using FRED ( http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ )

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