Americans Work Too Long Essay

According to Kara Heissman “the average worker works 55 hours a week now” (Lifehack.org). It’s hard to disconnect from work even when we aren’t in the office. We now bring work home with us by our smart phones and tablets. We still receive and respond to emails,

Over the last two decades, American workers have been clocking more and more hours on the job, and they now work more hours than workers in any other industrialized country. Annual work hours are 4% higher than they were in 1980, amounting to an extra 1 hour and 30 minutes at work per week, on average (ILO 1999). Workers are also clocking more overtime hours. Almost one-third of the workforce regularly works more than the standard 40-hour week; one-fifth work more than 50 hours. The growth in overtime work, while helping to drive the healthy growth in output in the U.S., has unhealthy social costs. It is taking its toll not only on workers, but on their families, communities, and, ultimately in many cases, patients, customers, and

If simplified, the disconnect in family life can be put into a broader category of the consequences that come with the length of time an individual spends in the workplace. Thus, the disconnect in family life transforms from merely a personal trouble for the Filimundus employees into a social issue of the length of time spent in the workplace. The historical factors behind the traditional eight-hour workday come from the Industrial Revolution, where new companies started to maximize the output of their factories by having workers in the factory all day in order to run the machinery. Eight-hour shifts allowed for exactly three rotations of employees running the machines for twenty-four hours straight, repeating each day. However, companies began to exploit their workers and made them grind out even longer shifts. Henry Ford was the man who officially installed a policy of an eight-hour workday, giving his employees a limit to how long they could work (Widrich 2014). The Industrial Revolution also brought about the disconnect in family life. No longer were families a unit, because they did not have to toil together on the farm. Instead, parents entered the work force and children attended school, separating the family. This history behind the eight-hour workday shows how it affected and still affects the modern and postmodern

In our stress ridden country, so focused on the hustle and bustle of work, we have lost sight of how to relax, and enjoy family time. With a six hour workday people can enjoy work, and life off-duty without feeling like they have to trade one for the other. Change will take time, and be difficult, but it is

Firstly, the long working hours could make employees bored of work, which might lead to the reduction in cooperative, harmonious working environment and psychological problem among employees. There seems to be a large decline in collectivism and negative effects in personality and work climate (Yung-Ho C et al, 2014). All people desire to pursue a meaningful life, besides work, they have their own interests, their family and their personal dream. If people cannot balance between work and personal life, they would not only be exposed to the risk of becoming a workaholic, but also damaged in their psychological aspects and even long-term mental problems (Armitage K, 2001).

Many employees work longer hours for many reasons, one of them being consumerism. They want to be able to have enough money to buy materialistic items and services as a way of filling the void of happiness, so they attempt to buy themselves happiness considering they don’t have the time or energy to actually see their families or friends and enjoy their free time so they try to buy happiness. Workaholics are also people who are known to work long hours because they feel as if they are compelled to work due to internal stress which results to damage towards an individual’s personal relationships and health as well as the quality and productivity of the work being done. Workaholics work long hours causing them to lose the sense of joy within their work as well as the joy in their personal life leading them to work more as a way to fill the void within their

The amount of people working more than 50 hours has increased since the 1980’s. Anna Burger, researcher and provider of charts in this article, believes there are two important things that contribute to less increase in work hours. One being “‘labour-market regulation.’” It is, in her words, “comprised of things like how difficult it is to fire people and how rigid working-hour rules are.” This is saying that giving employees fewer rights, allows their bosses to pressure them into staying later. The second being the amount of part-time employment. The more part-time employees there are, the less hours for one person to work. Burgers work attempted to explain why people begin working extreme hours, but she didn’t discuss the "Veblenian” explanation.

A shorter working week would equal a fairer distribution of available work, which would reduce the number of people that are over worked and the number of people that are unemployed. (Thomas, Anna) good of reduced work

People overworking themselves is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. People are expected to give their fullest every second that they are at work. Overwork can lead to lack of sleep, health issues, and even death. We can fix this problem by letting people have an extra day to rest. This one extra day can accomplish a lot to provide the people with enough time to rest and time to do what they want

Every hour that people work overtime, the productivity level goes down. People are going to be tired and sluggish if they work overtime and doesn’t give their body time off from all that stress and working. It could lead to depression and other health issues. People should be happy then everything will be more productive, live longer, and be a better American.

An employer wants to keep his employees to be productive as possibe and by having a shorter workday, it can be done. Based on the first article, in paragraph two, the Author claims "British boarding school classes was changed from 8:30 to 10:00 in the morning... student grades improved by an average of 19%" This shows how a school shortens it's class time, the students effort increased. The same can be applied to a job and its employees

The decision to be as productive as possible belongs soley to the employee. Most people can only focus on a task for 90 - 120 minutes at a time. During the Industrial Revolution, factory workers used to work 11-12 hours per day, six days per week. Mr. Fords' profits doubled within two years after presumably leaving his employees with less time to focus on their assembly line tasks. What changed?

America has an ineffective and problematic work week. Employees have an arduous time fitting in the rest of their life with their schedules, and businesses find that many employees aren't happy because of this. Many employees are leaving the companies they work for, or aren’t working to the best of their abilities. Converting to a four-day work week will benefit America by developing stronger businesses and increasing employee morale and production. Despite the fact that there are losses when transmuting to this timetable, the advantages this timetable offers are justified, despite the trouble.

Workers tried changing the hours per shift in Sweden and France but although it happened, it had to get changed back after awhile due to people overworking themselves and getting sick. Even if that wasn't an issue, there is more important matters that should be taken care of before this is even looked at, such as America not having paid maternity leave and minority and gender wage gaps.

The whirring of printers, the discussions of meeting rooms, and the steam of coffee machines control the modern world. America has built its country on the foundations of hard work, and Americans flaunt their work ethic, but this endless toil is not yielding the same great results as it once did. A modern culture of working late and long has infiltrated American workplaces from offices to hospitals. In fact, almost half of U.S. workers “routinely put in more than 50 hours on the job each week,” and they often do not get paid for overtime (Sullivan). Unfortunately, the widespread problem of overworking has only lead to a poorer quality of work, harming America in return. In his 1971 “Address to the Nation on Labor Day,” former U.S. president Richard Nixon stressed that “most important part of the quality of life is the quality of work" (Nixon). When America’s quality of work deteriorates from overworking, characterized by long working hours, America’s quality of life dies as well. From this, one may ask: to what extent does overworking in modern America affect the productivity of the average American worker? In the context of this question, productivity is defined as output per unit of input. Through an examination of multiple lens, overworking decreases overall American productivity in medical, economic, and social aspects while providing workers with a false sense of achievement.