The Economist

48 Business The EconomistJuly 21 st 2018

1

2 chart on previous page) Google will al-

ways have an incentive to discriminate

against rival offerings notes Damien Gera-

din of Tilburg University. And few will

sympathise with Mr Pichai’s warning on

fragmentation. An open-source ecosystem

istrickytomanagebutthisdoes not entitle

Google to stymie alternative ecosystems.

Rules telling device-makers exactly where

to place app icons seem draconian. Their

aim to protect Google’s search service

from competition seems clear. And its re-

strictions have had an impact for example

in the case of Amazon’s Fire phones

whose failure owed somethingto Google.

Yet the commission’s remedies still fall

far short of reining in Google. In both the

shopping and the Android cases it wants

the gianttoadministeritsown poison.“Itis

Google’s responsibility to bring the in-

fringement to an end” Ms Vestager said

this week. The rationale is that further

fines in case of non-compliance—up to 5%

of the average daily worldwide revenue of

Alphabet Google’s parent—will lead the

firm to do the right thing. Yet Google could

welljudgethatsuchfinesareanacceptable

cost ofdoingbusiness.

Ms Vestager’s approach is certainly not

working in the shopping case. In Septem-

ber Google opted for a remedy of the sort

that her predecessor Joaquín Almunia

had rejected: auctioning off the slots for

comparison-shopping results on its search

engine. So far the new offering has not at-

tracted many bidders most probably be-

cause they are loth to forkovera big part of

their already meagre profits. Only about

6 % ofslots are now filled by rival offers.

At least in the Android case the remedy

seems more straightforward. Google has

no choice but to drop the offending restric-

tions. But given how entrenched its An-

droid ecosystem and most of its apps are

this is unlikely to lead to big changes in the

W

ORK can make you sick and short-

en your life. That is the argument of

a hard-hitting book* by Jeffrey Pfeffer a

professorat the Stanford Graduate School

ofBusiness. In an obvious way that claim

is outdated. Health-and-safety rules help

explain why deaths from accidents in

American workplaces fell by 65 % be-

tween 1970 and 2015. Butone problem has

not gone away: stress. As many as 80 % of

American workers suffer from high levels

ofstress in their job according to a survey

entitled “Attitudes in the American Work-

place”. Nearly half say it is so debilitating

that they need help.

Firms are at least aware of the issue. A

study in 2008 by Watson Wyatt (a consul-

tancy that is now part of Towers Watson)

found that 48% of organisations said job-

related stress affected performance. But

only 5 % of employers said they were do-

inganythingto deal with the matter.

Mr Pfeffer’s book focuses on America

where the problem seems particularly

acute. One survey found that 5 5 % of em-

ployees log into their e-mails after 11 pm

(in contrast a new French law gives em-

ployees the right to ignore e-mails after

their working day has ended); 59 % do so

on holidays. That is ifthey actually take a

break at all; more than half of American

workers eligible for holiday do not use all

thetimeallotted. All toldMrPfeffercalcu-

lates that work-related issues may be re-

sponsible for as many as 120  00 0 Ameri-

can deaths a year. A comparison with

Europe suggests that around halfof those

deaths could be eliminated.

One reason for Europe’s better record

is the provision of universal health care.

Mr Pfeffer reckons that the absence of

healthinsuranceforallanditsoftenlimit-

ed nature where firms do provide it is the

biggest single contributor to America’s

higher work-related death rate. One sur-

vey estimated that being uninsured in-

creased mortality riskby 25 % amongwork-

ing-ageadults. Manyinsured workers have

restricted cover. In 2015 a Gallup survey

found that almost a third of Americans de-

layed medical treatment in the previous

year owing to the cost. None ofthis is good

for businesses. Workers in poor health are

less productive; they also tend to leave

work meaninghigher staff turnover.

Mr Pfeffer is also critical of America’s

work culture in which firms are quicker

than peers elsewhere to shed labour. “In-

creasedemployeefear disengagementand

reduced effort frequently swamp any posi-

tive direct effects that come from cutting

costs by reducing the payroll” he argues.

And if unemployment strikes poor health

maywell follow.Americanswholosetheir

jobs are 22 % more likely to experience a

heart attack after controlling for factors

such as smoking drinkingand obesity.

Mr Pfeffer thinks that the growth of the

gigeconomymaymakemattersworsestill.

Freelance workers are less likely to have

health insurance. They may also suffer

higher levels ofstress over theirunreliable

incomes and irregular hours. Broadly

speaking jobs that give individuals more

autonomy and control increase motiva-

tion and also make individuals healthier

MrPfeffer writes.

Many will think Mr Pfeffer overstates

his case. Some of the problems he de-

scribes are rooted in society as a whole

not business in particular. The design of

health-care systems is a political choice

rather than a business one. A general rise

in unemployment caused by an eco-

nomic downturn is not the fault of indi-

vidual businesses. The stress for workers

of a hire-and-fire culture cuts less deep

when unemployment is at record lows as

today. Much as the gigeconomy spells job

insecurity for some for others it means

greater control oftheir workinglives. And

some behaviour such as the unwilling-

ness of Americans to take holidays is

long-standing.

But Mr Pfeffer is right to call attention

to the problem of stress and persuasive

that job insecurity and the ubiquity of

electronic communication have added to

the pressure in the past 20 years. A big

change in America’s health-care system is

unlikely. So the best hope may lie in a

change in corporate behaviour.

The author cites firms such as Aetna

aninsurancegroup andBarryWehmiller

a manufacturer which have introduced

policies such as wellness programmes

and a higher minimum wage without

sacrificing profits. That model worked in

the past for Quaker-run British confec-

tionery businesses such as Cadbury and

Rowntrees. Mr Pfeffer’s book is a power-

ful argument forlookingat it again.

Bartleby Work till you drop

ProfessorPfefferfires a fact-filled fusillade

Economist.com/blogs/bartleby

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* “Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management

Harms Employee Health and Company

Performance—And What We Can Do About It”

published by Harper Business