Australians are among the world’s hardest workers, according to the latest survey conducted by the International Labour Organisation. Apparently twenty percent of the workforce endure a 50 hour working week. David Gregory from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says that this is the price Australians have to pay to remain competitive in the world:
Australia is performing better than most countries from an economic point of view at the moment And look, if that’s the price that we have had to pay to maintain that position, if that price is that we’ve had to perhaps pedal a little bit harder than we once were, then so be it.
Is it just me, or does that smack of a "slaves to the economy" mentality. If … performing better than most countries from an economic point of view …
implies that Australians are happier and have a better quality of life than those people in other countries (most notably, many European countries, where the workers apparently work fewer hours per week), then I’d be totally comfortable with Mr Gregory’s statement. But I don’t think Australians are happier – not any more. A survey conducted by the ACTU in 2002 found that Australians want to work fewer hours per week. Last year, Leadership Management Australia surveyed 2000 workers and found that people will work fewer hours if it leads to a better quality of life. So it should be. The economy serves the people, not vice-versa. A strong economy is not an end unto itself. A strong economy only matters in so far as it creates a better life for the people constituting that economy.
