Norwegian workers do 1,418 hours per year, one of the lowest in the world
For reference, that's 10:15 per day, 365 days a year. Or 996 without vacations, if you intend to have one day off.
996 has never been a standard work duration for urban workers in China, aside from some tech companies that promoted performative work ethics. And even there, people do take vacations.
Just going off basic numbers:
- 3744/52/5 = 14.4 hour day if they work 5 days a week
- 3744/52/6 = 12 hrs if they work 6 days a week
- 3744/52/7 = 10.3 hrs if they work 7 days a week.
Office workers will eat lunch, take a 1-2hr nap in the afternoon, and also eat dinner with their coworkers within the common 9-9-6 rhythm. It still takes a significant chunk of time, but the actual working time butt-in-chair is closer to 54 hours
Edit: And looking into it a little, I'm pretty sure two of those islands actually do have mandatory paid leave after a minimum period of employment.
1. Further exploit desperate people since those that don't need to work at any cost would steer clear of jobs that have 0 holidays. 2. You would further penalize people with families where both parents work. It is well understood that if your kid is sick you can't really use your sick days and so must use your PTO days. Having 0 available days doesn't play well with having kids (personal experience).
And finally, having mandated PTO allow you to actually take holidays. I heard too many times of companies that offer unlimited PTO and when the employer tries to take some they sabotage him/her or plainly threaten his/her job security.
Another way to think about it: why do we have building codes? We don't want to incentivize builders to cut corners that would risk an electrical fire or falling down in an earthquake or something in order to offer a cheaper price, so we make it illegal. If unsafe buildings are allowed, it makes it difficult for safe builders to stay in the market. Similarly, we don't want to incentivize workers to sell their labor with zero leave in order to offer a cheaper price, because that risks unhealthy and insular communities (literally unhealthy if people can't take sick leave), poor mental health, unhealthy childcare practices, an unhealthy civic environment if people can't take time off to vote or volunteer, etc. The labor market is competitive and people will sacrifice paid leave if they have to, because they need money to live, so we should make it illegal to remove the incentive.
No, you do not want that.
The market value of most people's labour is very close to zero.
Left to the market most of the population would live just below starvation, a very small group of owners would live very well, and a small group of artisans would do OK supporting the tiny group.
That is where many countries are heading
If you would rather trade your paid vacation for an extra week of pay, I am sure you and your boss can work it out. Companies pay out unused vacation all the time. Just don't ruin it for the rest of us!
Similarly, there is no US law against most crimes. It doesn't mean those laws don't exist in every State.
That said, there is no State with mandatory paid vacation either AFAIK.
Given the political diversity of the States, this suggests that mandatory paid vacation is either not considered an important issue by people across the political spectrum or there are existing regulations that would create real problems if there paid vacation was mandated without changing those regulations first.
Edit: Also, the US is a damn oil nation. It has nothing to do with oil, and everything to do with politics.
That's a lot of blackjack and hookers for the ministers, if you really believe that "the government" takes 57% of GDP for "themselves". No wonder we're at out 6th PM, they must fall like flies with the amount of drugs they have to snort in order to siphon this much money.
Partly because they're paying for drug innovation and defense for other countries.
Those outcomes depend much more on labor policy, bargaining power, and what governments choose to protect. In many places, business pressure and media framing make long hours seem unavoidable, even though they’re ultimately the result of policy choices.
Where do you think the term "Dutch disease" came from?