Tired of Business being open on Holidays

[Ed]

I am tired of non-essential business being open on Holidays.  This really reduces time that familes can spend together, time for communites and neighbors to gather and workers to recharge.

[Andrew A.]

Right, and in European countries workers get 6-8 weeks paid vacation every year.  It might be a sign of the times but it seems like it has been this way for a while, I seem to remember working holidays if the business was open or losing a day of pay if the business was closed in high school and college.  A buddy of mine who works for the city worked 75 hours the week of July 4 and was glad for it.  22 of his hours were 1.5 time and 13 were double time.  Then he got 10 days off.     A lot of people who are not salaried and do not get paid time off for holidays are okay with working holiday hours (and the holiday pay that may come with it) if it is between that and unpaid time off for the holiday -- those people tend to be a majority of those making the lowest wages and needing those hours to make ends meet.  It would be great to see U.S. labor laws progress to get closer to the better standards in Europe - 4-6 weeks of paid vacation as a standard would be huge - yet there seems to be something in our culture that is not ready for that.  No easy answers here, as usual.

[Ed]

This is especialy frustrating in that studies have proven workers are more productive when they get regular vacation time away from the job.
 
Maybe we should take a step in that 4 weeks paid vacation for all workers by starting with the lower paid employees and working on up to the higher paid employees.
 
If we alternate time off for everyone so that we don't have a Nation wide shutdown like Europe does we will see an increase in tourism expenditure and a drive in the need for more workers in all the industries that serve tourism.

[Andrew A.]

And then US corporations just have greater incentive to ship jobs offshore to countries with more lax labor regulations.  Frustrating indeed.

[Ed]

This is just a thought but - only so many jobs can be sent overseas - at some point the job loss has to hit a maximum.  Although, technology will likely increase that maximum on a constant basis. 
 
Food, entertainment, service and a handfull of other industries will be all that remain.
 
Unless!  We place excise/ import taxes that even out the costs of shipping out the jobs or keeping the jobs here.

[Ryan]

As a beginning, we could at least roll back outsourcing tax breaks that do nothing but give yet another incentive to send jobs overseas.

Of course, there is some evidence that quality of work done is actually bringing some traditionally outsourced jobs back to the country. Call centers based in India are the butts of many jokes and are receiving such backlash that some companies are finding that the cost savings just aren't worth it. The same goes for IT jobs. I've heard some first hand stories of how IT works in India and Pakistan and I've seen the results of outsourced projects and the stories of the development environment there make the results not surprising at all. Buggy, poorly designed solutions are what you should expect with unrealistic deadlines, constantly changing development teams, and no infrastructure for adequate design or testing. Companies are beginning to realize that you do get what you pay for.

Something I recently read in some industry news was "outsourcing" IT jobs not out of country but to parts of the country where cost of living and wages are lower. A New York firm can "outsource" their IT work to Jonesboro Arkansas or any of many similar areas around the country where cost of living and wages are half of those of New York City and, with a bit of overhead cost, still save around 40% on development costs while still getting high quality work done and not forcing IT professionals who don't want to live in the big city to do so, creating happier employees.

[Andrew A.]

It is the hidden agenda of the whole globalization/free trade charade.  If it is a U.S. company, then tariffs go away.  The U.S. manufacturing base is virtually nonexistent compared to how it was 30, 40, 50 years ago.  A lot more of our food comes from China/Asia, too.