Poles in work-life balance crisis

milkyThreads: 10 Posts: 1,229 Joined: Oct 26, 09 ♀	Jun 15, 11, 11:04 #1
As many as 42 percent of Poles sacrifice their private life by working extra hours and taking extra jobs, finds a new survey. Poles are more hard-working than any other European nation. Every forth Pole works overtime and almost the same number agrees to work on weekends or evenings.

SeanBMThreads: 41 Posts: 8,727 Joined: Mar 10, 08 ♂	Jun 15, 11, 13:13 #2
milky: Poles are more hard-working than any other European nation. I dislike sweeping statements like these. It's as easy to find a trash article on the internet stating the opposite.

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Edited by: milky Jun 15, 11, 13:36 #3

http://www.thenews.pl/9/7/Artykul/23890,Poles-in-worklife-balance-cris is

SeanBM:

It's as easy to find a trash article on the internet stating the opposite.

Sean that's the Daily STAR, A paper for tits and sensationalism;that is trash for sure, what part of the article I have shown is trash..I just cut and paste, no personal comment. Just threw it up for discussion...
And once again Moderators will you change my name to Milky O Mark . So the local spammers can be confused
For me Sean, that article you showed there from one of the soft porn mags, serves the purpose of dis-information and distracts the British people from whats going on in their own country, in reality(Im sure you know the game bla bla bla),similar to the click of snarks here, who systematically divert all talk away from the harsh reality of Poland today.

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Edited by: SeanBM Jun 15, 11, 13:59 #4

milky:

Just threw it up for discussion...

yeah, but it's a sweeping statement by any measure.

The European Union's working time directive imposes a 48 hour maximum working week. that applies to every member state except the United Kingdom (which has an opt-out meaning that UK-based employees may work longer than 48 hours if they wish, but they cannot be forced to do so).[11] France has enacted a 35-hour workweek by law, and similar results have been produced in other countries such as Germany through collective bargaining.

Wiki
Do people bend this law? of course some do especially if the work is seasonal, a roofer is just not going to be working on top of a roof, in minus 30, in two metres of snow.

I find people here work much earlier and go home much earlier than in Ireland.
Most bureaucrats work from 6 till 2 and I think most offices work 7:00-15:00, while banks still take the ****, my local opens at 10, I mean come on....
I was told that people here work and finish earlier so they can have quality time with their families or tend to their allotments.
But these are just my observations, maybe someone could find an article on the internet that says the opposite :)

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Jun 15, 11, 14:18 #5

SeanBM:

I was told that people here work and finish earlier so they can have quality time with their families or tend to their allotments.

Maybe its something to do with the rural population and farming. In Eire, the school summer holidays are much longer than Europe for this very reason.
On other point, I think the poorer the country and the higher the unemployment the more emplyers take the ****.

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Jun 15, 11, 22:55 #6
Many don't appear to be out of kilter but I know quite a few work very long hours to make ends meet. However, let's keep things in perspective. They have MANY holidays and the weekend is spent recharging their batteries. It's not as if Poland is the epicentre of entertainment anyway ;)

beckskiThreads: 19 Posts: 2,148 Joined: May 15, 07 MEMBER ♀	Jun 16, 11, 04:59 #7
milky: As many as 42 percent of Poles sacrifice their private life by working extra hours The article isn't very explicit. It states Poles are working overtime. It doesn't indicate if they are being compensated financially, in return for the extra work hours they've contributed. A sincere thanks PF, for putting up with me FIVE terrific years, muah!

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Jun 16, 11, 08:28 #8

Did an interesting exercise at our workplace - people were complaining about overwork and unpaid overtime so we started to properly measure, recorded everyones time and paid out those who were working extra.

But the actual average amount of overtime in a 1000 person company was only 4 hours per head, so circa 3% extra and 1 hour per week. If you were to take out the time employees spend tossing around on facebook, talking on their cellphones for personal business, making coffee, smoking etc then I'm not convinced they are working themselves to death.

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Jun 16, 11, 09:44 #9

cms:

If you were to take out the time employees spend tossing around on facebook, talking on their cellphones for personal business, making coffee, smoking etc then I'm not convinced they are working themselves to death.

In Mark's world, you are talking about perks of the job!!!!.The capitalist employers make all the profit so the workers are entitled to waste half the day in lieu of the poor wages they receive.

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Jun 16, 11, 11:32 #10

This is something you may wish to read: any comments

According to Poland’s central bank adviser, Miroslaw Gronicki, there have been serious problems with the balance of payment statistics and the ‘errors and omissions’ have reached 4% of GDP.

This is most likely the result of imports being seriously underestimated.

We think imports could have been underestimated by as much as EUR10-15bn in 2010. This would mean that GDP (as well as GDP growth) has been overestimated. As a result, all of Poland’s key macroeconomic ratios would look worse: higher budget and current account deficit as a share of GDP and higher debt-to-GDP ratio (probably above the key level of 55%).
These ‘statistical issues’ raise a numbers of questions about the overall quality of Polish macroeconomic data, which is likely to be negative for the Polish FX and fixed income markets.

Imports have been underestimated by EUR10bn

According to the comments from Mr Gronicki, the ‘statistical issue’ might have been caused by a underestimation of Polish imports. We would tend to agree with this. We have looked at Polish import data and at the export statistics of Poland’s major trading partners (Germany, China, Russia, France and Italy). We have simply compared Polish imports from Germany with German exports to Poland. The numbers should be more or less the same. For China, Russia, France and Italy, this is in fact more or less the case. However, in the case of German-Polish trade, it seems that Polish imports from Germany are as much as EUR10-15bn lower than German exports to Poland (see graph on page 1). The question is: do we trust the Polish or the German data? We would tend to trust the German data as the difference between the two sets of data is more or less the same size as the errors and omissions in the balance of payment statistics. If this assumption is correct, we might be in for a marked revision of not only the Polish import data, but also a downward revision of Polish GDP data – perhaps going as far back as 2004.

In terms of the risk of data revisions, it should be noted that the Czech statistics office and the Czech central bank recently (10 March) revised its trade data significantly, which led to a significant negative revision of the Czech current account data. This might be an indication of what we could expect in the Polish case – just on a bigger scale.

Potential revision of GDP data raises serious questions
If we were to get a large downward revision of Polish GDP data going back in time, it would raise a number of serious questions. The direct consequences would be:

The current account and budget deficit in Poland in 2010 as share of GDP might have been close to double digits (or at least 7-8% of GDP). This is a ‘twin deficit’ of a similar size to Hungary in 2005-06 when the country was forced to implement significant austerity measures.

The public debt might already have topped 55% of GDP – potentially triggering a ‘forced’ tightening of fiscal policy due to Poland’s quasi-constitutional limits on public debt. This obviously raises serious political questions as the Polish government has consistently said the debt would not top 55% of GDP. In this regard, it should of course be noted that there will be parliamentary elections later this year.

The Polish government has said it will meet the demands of the European Commission to cut the budget deficit to below 3% of GDP in 2012. A large downward revision of Polish GDP data would make it almost impossible to reach a budget deficit of 3% without implementing Draconian budget cuts. Lack of action on fiscal policy could heighten the conflict between the European Commission and the Polish government on this issue

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Jun 16, 11, 12:44 #11
But can they really sting the average punter any more than they are doing? To attempt to do so would be met with a backlash.

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Jun 16, 11, 14:58 #12

Seanus:

But can they really sting the average punter any more than they are doing? To attempt to do so would be met with a backlash.

Its a double edged sword, Seanus, on one hand create the illusion that you have the best performing economy in Europe and encourage everyone to spend or release the facts and watch your economy shrink, as people close their wallets. Remember the Pol gov, has continually played on domestic consumption as the secret of success.

FUZZYWICKETSThreads: 12 Posts: 1,999 Joined: Nov 3, 09 ♂	Jun 16, 11, 15:05 #13
Milky wrote: As many as 42 percent of Poles sacrifice their private life by working extra hours and taking extra jobs, finds a new survey. doesn't everybody? what constitutes "extra hours"? 9 hours instead of 8.5 hours? milky wrote: Poles are more hard-working than any other European nation. just a dumb statement.

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,158 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Jun 16, 11, 15:06 #14
It's all about maintaining the deception!

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Jun 16, 11, 21:23 #15

warszawski:

Its a double edged sword, Seanus, on one hand create the illusion that you have the best performing economy in Europe and encourage everyone to spend or release the facts and watch your economy shrink, as people close their wallets.

good point..

Seanus:

But can they really sting the average punter any more than they are doing? To attempt to do so would be met with a backlash.

It's all about disposable income,which for the Poles the "majority' have little or none, so, a backlash would be inevitable, or else people will just spend a few more hours a week in church praying.

FUZZYWICKETS:

just a dumb statement.

Its a cut and paste, not my words buddy...

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Jun 16, 11, 23:38 #16

warszawski:

any comments

Bloody good post.

warszawski:

Its a double edged sword, Seanus, on one hand create the illusion that you have the best performing economy in Europe and encourage everyone to spend or release the facts and watch your economy shrink, as people close their wallets. Remember the Pol gov, has continually played on domestic consumption as the secret of success.

The truth in a nutshell......... well put.

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