British workers 'among worst idlers', suggest Tory MPs

[kwerk]

Hang on I need a tea break before I read this.

 

[Begbie]

Totally believable. The armed forces are definitely a load of layabouts, me included \o/

+1

Get paid for what you know, not what you do

 

[dowie]

Quite ironic really when you consider recently a nurse recorded and blogged the last regrets from dying patients in a hospice and found that nearly all males top regrets was working too hard, I wonder how many people on here will have the same regret on their death bed.

I thought the biggest regret was usually not nailing enough girls in their younger days.

 

[Things change I've changed]

I thought the biggest regret was usually not nailing enough girls in their younger days.

That's a healthy regret, not a death bed regret

 

[kwerk]

That's not my point.

If you make people work 60 hour weeks there are going to be times where the workers can not be bothered to work. However if they worked less and had more holidays, more time off, less hours, more time outside of work. Surely some (not all) workers are more likely to be more productive at work. It seems that when you start work full time, you live to work.

How much better do you feel at work after having a week off?

If a worker cant be bothered to work you fire them and hire someone else. If you as a business owner you find that giving your workers more holidays makes your workers more productive fair play to you.

 

[Castiel]

+1

Get paid for what you know, not what you do

And don't volunteer for anything...and if in doubt, carry something.

 

[Mason-]

If a worker cant be bothered to work you fire them and hire someone else. If you as a business owner you find that giving your workers more holidays makes your workers more productive fair play to you.

So seeming as we are one of the nations with fewer holidays does that mean that the countries with more have failing businesses everywhere? Oh wait they don't.

You are going massively off track. The point is, a lot of this country work bloody hard and work a lot! For an MP to say we are amongst worst idlers is frankly insulting, and a joke.

You have lazy people and people with a good work ethic in every country. You have scroungers living off benefits, doesn't mean you can brand a nation as being amongst worst idlers. He should be directing his angst towards people who sit on there arse all day saying they are 'trying' to get a job but rather they know they won't take any, sit on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle scratching their arse. That's where the problem lies.

 

[Fusion]

We do have some issues when it comes to general productivity, but we aren't bad by European standards.

Our discipline and work ethic is markedly behind that of many Asian nations, but I don't think it's something that can easily be corrected (I don't think benefit reform would do it as many of the "idlers" are working).

 

[Castiel]

You do realise that this gets said in every other country as well...they all get accused of being the worst this or that......politics, people...its not real!

 

[RDM]

You are going massively off track. The point is, a lot of this country work bloody hard and work a lot! For an MP to say we are amongst worst idlers is frankly insulting, and a joke.

Surely that would depend on if they have any evidence to back it up? If it turns out we are less productive than some Asian countries then is saying it actually insulting?

 

[Ricochet J]

British MPs 'among worst idlers', suggest public

Surely the reciprocal is true?

 

[Mason-]

Surely that would depend on if they have any evidence to back it up? If it turns out we are less productive than some Asian countries then is saying it actually insulting?

And why do we need to be as productive as Asian countries? What is wrong with the amount of production we currently do. Also a large amount of Asia's population is Chinese.

"Hi, I'm Chinese I don't feel like working today"

*Gun shot*

We live in a country where if you don't work you'll be fine.

 

[Theophany]

Surely that would depend on if they have any evidence to back it up? If it turns out we are less productive than some Asian countries then is saying it actually insulting?

Surely that depends on how you measure productivity?

For example, if a country is largely industrial and developed it wouldn't be an enormous leap of logic to assume a great deal of their industry is automated, which means that productivity could have less to do with human input and the efficiency of the machines used in the automation process.

I'm not shooting you down or saying you're wrong, but I think that there are a lot of variable factors that contribute to productivity - environmental factors, societal factors, cultural factors etc - which would suggest that you can never really achieve a true benchmark with such a measure and thus they are rarely perfectly comparable.

 

[kwerk]

So seeming as we are one of the nations with fewer holidays does that mean that the countries with more have failing businesses everywhere? Oh wait they don't.

You are going massively off track. The point is, a lot of this country work bloody hard and work a lot! For an MP to say we are amongst worst idlers is frankly insulting, and a joke.

You have lazy people and people with a good work ethic in every country. You have scroungers living off benefits, doesn't mean you can brand a nation as being amongst worst idlers. He should be directing his angst towards people who sit on there arse all day saying they are 'trying' to get a job but rather they know they won't take any, sit on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle scratching their arse. That's where the problem lies.

You do have failing businesses everywhere. The government itself is a failing business.

And just because you're working hard doesn't mean you're producing anything. The government could pay you to sing lullabys to homeless cats for 8 hours a day but it's not going to produce anything (except "social justice") is it? They might as well be paying the same amount to stay at home and watch Jeremy Kyle.

 

[Sherbs]

must strive to emulate the work ethic and low-tax culture in parts of Asia

Cool, so they're gonna lower tax so we can emulate the work ethic yeah?

 

[Mason-]

You do have failing businesses everywhere.

Thanks for just defeating your own point.

As for governments, that's not to do with lazy workers. It's to do with greedy bankers.

 

[kwerk]

Even if the government pays you to actually produce something useful, it doesn't mean you're going to produce it efficiently. Look at coal mining, it required billions of government subsidies to keep running because it was hugely inefficient and uncompetitive. The idea that you could have made it more efficient by giving the miners more holidays is ridiculous.

 

[UncleRuckus]

Clearly we must exterminate the British workforce or instate Communism.

 

[RDM]

And why do we need to be as productive as Asian countries? What is wrong with the amount of production we currently do. Also a large amount of Asia's population is Chinese.

"Hi, I'm Chinese I don't feel like working today"

*Gun shot*

We live in a country where if you don't work you'll be fine.

Which is a completely different argument. Not to mention not all Asian countries are like China.

 

[kwerk]

You are going to see a lot of articles like this. They have to condition people to start accepting longer, harder, lower paid work and lower living conditions cos the free ride is over. They will go on about making sacrifices, work ethic, doing your bit. They believe they can spread the depression out for a decade if they can put the right collectivist spin on it and people accept the conditioning. Probably even hold the eurozone together too. But of course living standards will be drastically reduced.