{"id":10958,"date":"2015-08-12T18:13:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T23:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10958"},"modified":"2015-08-12T18:13:48","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T23:13:48","slug":"greece-a-mystery-and-the-core-of-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10958","title":{"rendered":"Greece \u2013 A Mystery and the Core of the Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"art-postheader\"><a title=\"Permanent Link to Greece \u2013  A Mystery and the Core of the Problem\" href=\"http:\/\/www.acting-man.com\/?p=39258\" rel=\"bookmark\">Greece \u2013 A Mystery and the Core of the Problem<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><strong>The Industrious Greeks Mystery<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the course of the Greek crisis, animosities between creditor countries like Germany and Greece didn\u2019t take long to surface. They were fired up in the tabloid press, which was quick to revive various stereotypes. In Greece, Germans soon found themselves compared to their Nazi predecessors, while German tabloids\u00a0<em>inter alia<\/em>\u00a0complained\u00a0<em>sotto voce<\/em>\u00a0about those allegedly \u201clazy Southerners\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-39255\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acting-man.com\/blog\/media\/2015\/08\/lazy-Greek.jpg\" alt=\"lazy Greek\" width=\"640\" height=\"385\" \/>The stereotype of \u201clazy Greeks\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This complaint seemed only natural, after all, everybody knows how hard-working Germany\u2019s citizens are compared to the siesta-prone indolent slackers inhabiting assorted Mediterranean shores, right? Not so fast, said economists. OECD studies show that\u00a0<em>the average Greek worker toils for 2,017 hours per year, the by far highest figure in Europe<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-39256\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acting-man.com\/blog\/media\/2015\/08\/siesta.jpg\" alt=\"siesta\" width=\"640\" height=\"485\" \/>More stereotyping \u2026<\/p>\n<p>This compares to a seemingly ridiculous 1,408 hours put in by the average German worker per year, who finds himself almost at the very bottom of the OECD\u2019s list. Oops, there goes a well-worn stereotype. These figures have to be put in to perspective though. Superficially, it looks like the average Greek citizen in the labor force is working 40% more than his comparable German counterpart, but to some extent this is comparing apples to oranges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.acting-man.com\/blog\/media\/2015\/08\/1-Hours-worked-per-year.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-39251\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acting-man.com\/blog\/media\/2015\/08\/1-Hours-worked-per-year-1024x540.png\" alt=\"1-Hours worked per year\" width=\"600\" height=\"316\" \/><\/a>OECD statistics on hours worked per year. This is a slightly dated statistic, but not much has changed since it has been compiled \u2013 click to enlarge.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">For one thing, Greece\u2019s labor force has a fairly large number of self-employed people, who habitually work longer hours than salaried employees. For another, every fourth German worker is working part-time. However, even if one adjusts for these effects and only compares full-time employees, Greeks\u00a0<em>still\u00a0<\/em>work approx. 10% more than Germans on average (the latter take longer vacations, as well as more sick and maternity leave).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greece \u2013 A Mystery and the Core of the Problem The Industrious Greeks Mystery In the course of the Greek crisis, animosities between creditor countries like Germany and Greece didn\u2019t take long to surface. They were fired up in the tabloid press, which was quick to revive various stereotypes. In Greece, Germans soon found themselves [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[279,281,284,359,1167],"class_list":["post-10958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-germany","tag-greece"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10959,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10958\/revisions\/10959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}