Europeans in the 1980's used to have much shorter work days and work weeks. I was amazed how few people were at the Philips factory there in Nederlands before 9am or after 3pm Monday through Thursday and almost nobody on Fridays. I was also amazed at the number of holidays, especially a whole week of Carnival before Lent. My American joint venture employer wanted to withhold my pay for all of those holidays but I got the Vice President of Philips international to lean on the American venture because I was actually an international employee/contractor working under Nederlands work and salary rules. I understand that during the 2000's a lot of companies were purchased by international corporations who worked to Americanize European labor rules and break unions as much as they could. Didn't matter I'd gone into teaching College Engineering so I was under American BS Labor rules (lack there of in Right to Work for Less States). It truly is a shame that the trend is backwards from what everyone was promised and delivered in many cases through the 1970's early 1980's with on premises day care, exercise rooms, full cafeterias with subsidized delicious meal pricing for three shifts each day. Profit Sharing and Employee stock purchase plans at below market rates, real pension plans instead of 401K scams where companies can arbitrarily stop putting in their share any time they feel like it while buying back their own stocks inflating values (but usually not significant part of employee 401Ks).