Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Overtime A Waste Of Time?
BOSTON (CBS) – Americans work more hours than people in almost every country in the world. But research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that working overtime may be a waste of time.
And that's pretty depressing to hear since we put-in more hours than anywhere other than Japan and Korea, where workers have actually begun checking themselves into private psychiatric clinics to deal with their work stress.
You might feel like doing the same thing.
Or you could just stop working so much. Because this annual report finds that working extra hours can be an actual drag on productivity, never mind your mind and body.
To that end, Japan and South Korea are among the least productive countries in the world when it comes to hours worked.
And you might not believe which country is more productive than those I've mentioned.
Try France.
Yes, the country everyone likes to make fun of for supposedly laying around smoking cigarettes and drinking wine instead of working is frequently found in this report to have higher productivity by the hour than the U.S., according to the Washington Post.
And they get 30 days paid vacation.
To be clear, there are plenty of things wrong with France's economy. But we might want to take that vacation policy because the United States is the only advanced economy without one.
Follow Joe on Twitter @joemathieuwbz
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