Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The American Workday, By Profession

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fingers-to-the-bone-but-very-slowly dept.

An anonymous reader writes NPR has created an interesting visualization of workday data from the American Time Survey. It shows what the typical working times are for each profession. You can see some interesting trends, like which professions distribute their work throughout the day (firefighters and police), which professions take their lunch breaks the most seriously (construction), and which professions reverse the typical trends (food service). "Still, Americans work more night and weekend hours than people in other advanced economies, according to Dan Hamermesh and Elena Stancanelli's forthcoming paper (PDF). They found that about 27 percent of Americans have worked between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at least once a week, compared with 19 percent in the U.K. and 13 percent in Germany."

8 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. "More advanced economies?" by idontgno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Still, Americans work more night and weekend hours than people in other advanced economies,

    I believe the correct definition of an advanced economy is one which enables, empowers, and encourages a worker to be fully engaged and continuously productive at all hours of every day of the week, maximizing shareholder value and business agility while minimizing costs.

    Question for the reader: Am I joking, trolling, or serious?

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    1. Re:"More advanced economies?" by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Funny

      Are you an employee, unemployed or in management?

  2. Seems good to me. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary makes it sound like a bad thing. To me, it indicates an economy that doesn't roll up the sidewalks at 5pm. It takes a lot of service jobs to keep businesses open 24 hours. It's great that I can go out and buy a Big Mac and a lawnmower at 3am.

    1. Re:Seems good to me. by Draknor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And unions are bad again... why?

      (making a generalization - I don't know if tompaulco has ever said anything about unions or not.) Many posters comment on this extreme power dynamic differential that they are at the short end of, but then no one seems to be in favor of unions. Not saying unions aren't without their problems, but the simple fact is the only thing that can effectively fight organized bureaucracy & greed (like management) is ... more organized bureaucracy & greed (in the form of unions).

      My $0.02, anyway...

    2. Re:Seems good to me. by Prien715 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I see unions like judges -- as a foundation of a democratic society.

      They can both be corrupted by money, be involved in organized crime, but can also make a tremendous difference in the lives of thousands by Doing Their Job (TM). Removing judges causes anarchy (the problem they were designed to fix) and removing unions concentrates wealth in the hands of a few non-working people (the problem they were designed to fix). If we look around, union membership is at an all-time low and we have wage stagnation. Coincidence? In countries with higher union participation, you also see benefits like mandatory paid vacation, wage growth, and single payer healthcare.

      People can argue whether or not union Foo is good or bad (just as we can with a given judge), but unions themselves are a necessary tool in combating the abuse of people by those in corporate governance through elections.

      --
      -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  3. Bah ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The hookers come out at night to screw their clients, the stock market guys get up early to screw all of us.

    Everything in the middle depends on who your clients are, and type of industry you're in.

    Educated people see daylight (or get paid a premium), less educated get shift work.

    I don't even need to read TFA to know these things. ;-)

    And, yes, I'm mostly kidding.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. TFA bad at math? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look at the graph in TFA. Only 35% are still working by 5pm. By contrast, 45% are working by 7:30am. So...why isn't the "standard workday" the 45%-to-45% mark of 7:30-4:30?

  5. coordinated work by mr_mischief · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lots of construction work is only safe to do when the crew is working together. You can't have people single-lifting things that require team lifting. You can't have a truck, pallet jack, front loader, paver, or crane operator running heavy equipment in confined areas without spotters and such. A roofer needs nails and shingles brought up to be efficient. Getting to lunch at the same time is good safety and good business. It's not just a union thing.