Hours of work?

There are some sectors that do work normal 9-5 BUT as other have said there are others that expect the same or more than the states.  I'm a Senior Manager in a printing company and my hours can regularly exceed 60 hours per week + I'm on 24/7 call (all unpaid), this said I am fairly high up the escalation list so I if I get a call it has to be serious.

These long hours also go down the company as well, for example Account Managers and Programmers all have clauses written into their contract saying that at times overtime is expected.  Managers are expected to take advantage of this clause to achieve customers deadlines.

So I think that in a lot of areas people do work reasonable hours, there are just as many areas where excessive hours are expected.

If you want good hours all the time go to france

It would appear that more people live on assistance in the UK more than the US based on this statistic. Then again statistics can be tweeked. Scroll all the way to the bottom on both studies to see the US score.

Percentage of unemployed for UP to 12 months: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/lab_lon_ter_une

Percentage of unemployed for LONGER than 12 months: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/lab_lon_ter_une_sha

In the US one is only allowed to collect unemployment benefits for a certain period of time.  Once their time has run, they drop of the "official" unemployment numbers...hence one way the numbers are tweeked in the US.

Don't know how they're tweeked in the UK - I'm sure they are!

Yes, I agree. It's the same here in Sweden with unemployment. The government has all sorts of training programs some that are partly beneficial and some that just waste taxpayer money all the while making the unemployment statistic here shrink. The government claims that if the person is in a government sponsored training program then the person is techincially unemployed. That makes little sense to me since the person still unemployed and not only is receiving money to be trained but is STILL receiving unemployment money as well. To me this is even worse. The government does not include these people in their unemployment statistics. I don't know how it's done in the US or UK. Statistics can be tweeked.