A few days ago, I got a copy of a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that looks at some global employment trends. The report has got some good data–but, memo to the folks at the ILO, it is really written way too boringly (spice it up!!!). Do you want people to read the report or just toss it? Anyway, enough of that…to the content:

   You remember how we’ve talked about how people are working harder than ever before–and yet wages aren’t reflecting that? The folks at the ILO say that:

The United States continued to show the highest labour productivity levels in 2006 measured as value added per person employed per year, at US$63,885; the United States was followed by Ireland (US$55,986) and Luxembourg (US$55,641) at a considerable distance. However, Norway showed the highest labour productivity level measured as value added per hour worked(US$37.99), followed by the United States (US$35.63) and France (US$35.08).

    Oh, those Norwegians, when they aren’t harpooning whales, they just can’t stop competing, huh? But, what you see above here is pretty amazing–and not actually surprising. The U.S. has a sky-high productivity rate–which wouldn’t shock most workers who think they are busting their behinds.

    And that number above puts an even more sharper focus on the behavior of corporations–despite the fact that productivity here is at the top of the world, corporations are still not paying people what they deserve, cutting health care and jettisoning pensions. And they are looking to outsource and find even cheaper wages because, well, they aren’t wringing out enough from the sweat of the brow of the workers.

    Now, check out how hard people are working around the world:

Annual hours worked per person surpassed 2,200 in six Asian economies – the Republic of Korea leads the group, followed by Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and Thailand. At the other end of the spectrum, most European Union countries had much lower hours, especially in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, where workers put in less than 1,600 hours per year.

    So, people in Asia are at their jobs a third more than people in European Union countries. We’d probably fall in between those two, and be closer to the Asian model. This is insane.

    And we also know that people here and abroad would like to work more if they had the chance–that’s the sad fact of underemployment and employment that doesn’t pay enough money. And underemployment hits women harder than men. The global stats confirm this:

For half of the countries in Latin America & the Caribbean, at least one out of eight people employed is currently working on a part-time basis, but wanting to work additional hours – they are, therefore, underemployed. In contrast, countries in Central and Eastern Europe, along with a few recent European Union countries, display the lowest shares of time-related underemployment. In almost all countries women in part-time employment are more likely to be seeking more hours than their male counterparts. This is particularly the case in the developed economies, where many women are at least twice as prone as men to find themselves underemployed

    All in all, not a pretty picture. But, are you surprised? And why don’t we hear this from more political leaders? Yeah, we know the answer.