The most productive countries of Europe

[antonio]

Congratulations to Italy, and specially to France, for stading way above Germany, UK and Spain in one of the stats more related (i assume) about being a First World country.

[antonio]

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[antonio]

I don't know how they calculate this, though. Probably Germany ranks ''low'' because they work less and get bigger salaries? Maybe this is what affects it ?

I guess it's because at Germany there're high-payed jobs and also low-payed ones (many part-time jobs, i suppose). Also I would bet in Greece, corporations (like turism ones) profits high on low salaries of people.

[Virtuous]

It suprises me that Greeks are in the same color with Germans.

We are not industrialized, and we don't have the same techonology that Germans have.
Although we are called lazy, its a fact that Greeks work more hours than Germans, and its also a fact that Greek diasporians are known to be hardworking people.
But being hardworking has nothing to do with being productive.

I don't know how they calculate this, though. Probably Germany ranks ''low'' because they work less and get bigger salaries? Maybe this is what affects it ?

Germans are lucky because they don't have to work in a hot climate.

Speaking of summer *

[Styggnacke]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304

[Aivap]

Although economic crisis Italy remains the second manifacturing economy of the EU beside Germany.
And it's absolutely ridiculous that medias and rating agencies try to compare this country with Greece.

[Hevneren]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304

According to this we're the second most productive with the third least hours worked. Not bad. Imagine how productive we'd be if we worked the most hours.

[askra]

But we're talking here of labor productivity, not merely of working hours.

I was referring in particular to the most industrialised countries in the world (Japan and USA), sometimes statistics can be interpreted in different ways.
In Italy there are a lot of people with a degree in philosophy, law, political sciences, literature, all these people are destined to the unemployment, or to practise unproductive jobs, while the most productive countries are those ones that give priority to people with a graduation in chemistry, engineering, biology, etc.
An engineer or a chemist is more useful for the economic growth, than a philosopher or a lawyer.

[Europa]

This map is bull shit.There is no way that the Germans are less productive then French and Irish...Germany is the spine of the EU followed by France of course.

[Foxy]

I was referring in particular to the most industrialised countries in the world (Japan and USA), sometimes statistics can be interpreted in different ways.
In Italy there are a lot of people with a degree in philosophy, law, political sciences, literature, all these people are destined to the unemployment, or to practise unproductive jobs, while the most productive countries are those ones that give priority to people with a graduation in chemistry, engineering, biology, etc.
An engineer or a chemist is more useful for the economic growth, than a philosopher or a lawyer.

Yes, very true: we should change the traditional Italian mindset that gives priority to general culture than to productivity (the typical mindset is that a person must have a very high culture in terms of literature, philosophy and general knowledge). I find Italians to be high educated, but we are forgetting that we are one of the most indutrialized countries in the world thank to our small businessmen and women, entrepreneurs, farmers, ingeneers, etc. etc.
We should change this general mindset, although schools are already changing in this direction (they have introduced more hours of English, informatic and of mathes). Also parents should care less to send their children to renowed faculties like law, and teach them that it is better to have 50 workmen and 10 entrepreneurs than 30.000 philosophers, teachers and lawyers .