LA VOCE

IL FALSO MITO DEL NUMERO FISSO DI POSTI DI LAVORO

22.11.2011

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Il grafico mostra sull’asse orizzontale la percentuale di uomini tra 55 e 64 anni che lavorano e, sull’asse verticale, la percentuale di uomini fra i 20 e i 29 anni disoccupati.
Molti credono che ci sia un numero fisso di posti di lavoro e che, dunque, forzando i lavoratori più anziani ad andare in pensione, si creino opportunità di lavoro per i giovani. Questa tesi ha fornito il sostegno a chi si è opposto all’innalzamento dell’età di pensionamento in linea con l’allungamento della speranza di vita. Il grafico ci dice invece che nei paesi in cui il tasso di disoccupazione dei giovani (20-29 anni) è più basso, ci sono anche più persone tra i 55 e i 64 anni che lavorano. Viceversa nei paesi in cui meno lavoratori anziani hanno un impiego ci sono anche più disoccupati giovani.

Grafico a cura di Isabella Rota Baldini

Finally, a Proper Study to Scientifically Show Telecommuting is More Productive

There've been studies into the benefits of telecommuting before, but they were usually lacking in certain areas, which resulted in the findings being less than scientific (and thus not super trustworthy). This time a Stanford University study used a Chinese travel agency with over 12,000 employees as its base, and concluded that working remotely actually does noticeably increase performance.

508 out of 996 employees registered for the study, and were then further divided into two groups: One that worked from home after being confirmed to have an adequate remote working environment, and one that had to continue commuting to work. Tracking then began on both groups, and after just a few weeks, the home group took more calls, logged more hours and were overall just more productive than the other group. They were even happier and quit less often.

After seeing these results, the travel agency expanded the policy to get more people to work from home. However, some employees opted out because they, as Slate pointed out, valued the time they spent socializing with workers. (I can relate with both groups, after also working from home for years and years.)

To me, the study's results might be skewed a little high toward the benefits of working remotely, seeing as those people who registered for this study were self-selected, meaning that they probably had a natural preference for working from home. But then again, I'm not sure this actually matters. It's unlikely that people who don't like working from home would be forced to do so, and if you do like it, you'll do better anyway (as this study shows). So the takeaway from this experiment—for use in convincing your employers to let you work from home—is that it's scientifically proven that certain people are more productive working outside of an office.

Un grafico interattivo: è molto interessante per capire meglio la crisi europea

It’s All Connected: An Overview of the Euro Crisis

Published: October 22, 2011

DATA POINTS | BILL MARSH

European leaders are meeting this week to deal with growing debt problems rattling investors worldwide. Here is a visual guide to the crisis.