Is the ‘long’ summer break hurting our economy, or is the economy hurting us and we need a goddamn break?
Last week there were various headlines and articles as well as conversations on talkback radio about how New Zealanders purportedly take a long, lazy summer break, starting in early December (even November!) and ‘circling back’ in February (even March!). Although there were some dissenters, the general attitude seemed to be that a) this is a thing, and b) this is a bad thing.
Millionaire investor and business-growth coach Toss Grumley had started this public conversation when he posted on LinkedIn that “I’m baffled every year by New Zealand’s intense Christmas shut down”. He also posted a question without a question mark: “in what world as an economy and country are we operating in an environment where no business discussion can happen for a period of ten weeks”.
Grumbley (sorry, typo) subsequently wrote a column in The Post, complaining that “the summer break seems to be extending” and has “started to become way too extreme”. Extreme? It’s an extreme situation when you’re tossing up between buying presents or dinner for Christmas Day. Millionaires would be better off making donations to food banks and city missions rather than telling the less fortunate about how “we are mentally tapped out us over the eight-week ‘Christmas period’”.
“This mentality of circle back in February seems to start late November or early December,” he writes, adding that “the most concerning part is the ‘circle back mid-February’ mentality, which means while many are at work, they aren’t doing much productive work”. Hence his contention that there are 10 weeks of no productive conversations. I knew that a certain term would crop up. Grumley writes that “New Zealand’s long summer shutdown may be hurting productivity”.
Look, I’m not going to get into how productivity is measured, or what we might measure instead, because then I’d end up working throughout my summer break. I’ll write about it next year if you like – you know, once I’ve ‘circled back’. FFS, this notion that we’re tapping out for eight to ten weeks and ‘circling back in February’ is nonsense.
Meanwhile Auckland Business Chamber head Simon Bridges told stuff.co.nz that “there is a view that New Zealand just shuts down not just for Christmas and New Year but in many cases all the way through to March”. March? Puh-lease.
By the numbers
We did our own mini-poll about this with you, readers. At last count, 83% of you are taking a summer break. Of those, 35% are returning on January 5, 47% on January 12, 9% on January 19, and 9% on January 26. A whopping 96% of you said that most people will be back in the office by mid-January. Only 4% say that people seem to ‘float back late’ in February. So, yes, ours is a small sample size, but 96% of people don’t see any ‘floaters’.
But for argument’s sake, let’s say we’re taking exorbitant time off work to sun ourselves at our imaginary baches, ‘circling back’ in February or March. In this scenario, we’re told we’re ‘hurting the economy’. But back in the real world, the economy – the shrunken economy – is hurting us. Many of us are struggling to pay the bills. And some people don’t have anywhere to ‘circle back’ to. Unemployment has risen to a near nine-year high of 5.3%, with 18,000 jobs lost over the past year.
Even given the dire state of the economy, politicians aren’t exactly hurrying back to work. As Radio NZ says of Parliament’s sitting calendar, “it includes an absurd single week at the end of January that seems to say ‘see we’re back at work already too’ before taking a week’s breather for Waitangi Day”.
Meanwhile, some regular folks are taking some of their hard-earned annual leave in late January or even – gasp – early February. They may have saved up their leave for the ‘summer break’ because their children aren’t back at school until well into February. Parents who can’t afford holiday-programme fees aren’t sitting around sipping lattes, btw. Then there are self-employed people who need to look after the kids and run a business at the same time… all I can say is let me know if you want me to send some fruit mince pies.
All in all, let’s not let a grumbling millionaire shame us into taking less time off. And it’s not like NZ is an outlier, anyway. Many European countries also have a long break in summer; they generally last for around three months in Italy, Spain and France.
Fleur Fitzsimons, national secretary of the union Public Service Association, has this to say. “New Zealand has a culture of long hours. Workers need more holidays to recharge, reconnect with their families and get ready for the working year ahead.” We agree.