In Australia, Overwork is overtaking unemployment as the number one labour-market problem. The working week has been growing longer each year over the past 17 years; thanks to deregulation and job insecurity, workers are competing to put in more time to avoid being turfed out into the dole queues; after all, there's someone waiting in line right behind you who would be more than happy to put in a 50-hour week if you're not.

"Christmas celebrations will be dampened by exhaustion as millions of workers try to recover from a year of laboring harder and longer than ever,"

The author of the Australian Bureau of Statistics report said that the Federal Government should introduce schemes to encourage people to work less. What, and reduce productivity, the one absolute, quantifiable good that exists in the economic-rationalist world-view? Somehow I don't see it happening with the current government in place (especially now that with the mythical "level playing field" we have to compete with countries where they don't have weekends or holiday leave).

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