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Speaker 1: Debate has fired up over whether our long summer break

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Speaker 1: is too long. It's been kicked off by they had

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Speaker 1: opinion piece written by the businessman Toss Gramley who reckons

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Speaker 1: taking weeks off over summer hurts our productivity and queue

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Speaker 1: everyone weighing in with their opinion, from the Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: to Simer Bridges. The Auckland boss. Christoph Schumacher is a

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Speaker 1: professor of innovation and economics at Massi University and.

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Speaker 2: Is with us on the hid Christoph, good morning, do.

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Speaker 1: You reckon has summer breaks too long?

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Speaker 2: Well? Our summer break is long compared to the rest

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Speaker 2: of the world, and New Zealand scores quite highly on

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Speaker 2: the work life balance. But I think the question is

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Speaker 2: not is it too long? The question should be can

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Speaker 2: we afford it?

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean you wouldn't be doing it if you

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Speaker 1: couldn't afford it, would you?

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Speaker 2: Rall to look? In the last ten years our productivity

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Speaker 2: growth rate has gone from one point two percent, which

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Speaker 2: is right the OCD average, to zero point two percent,

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Speaker 2: and we now are ranked sixty third out of sixty

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Speaker 2: seven countries. So our productivity is rather low. So the

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Speaker 2: question becomes, then can we afford this? Rather long summer

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Speaker 2: break and the answers.

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Speaker 1: No, The answer is no, you're totally right, But saying

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Speaker 1: to me like, okay, So saying to the small business

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Speaker 1: owner who's running a construction business, Hey, he's worked all hard,

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Speaker 1: will year really really hard, he wants to take the

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Speaker 1: summer off, saying to him he needs to keep working

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Speaker 1: through the summer for the country's productivity. Is not going

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Speaker 1: to make him work through the summer, is it?

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Speaker 2: No, Look, people do deserve their breaks and be all

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Speaker 2: of the states right now where we do need a

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Speaker 2: break to become to be fresh and come back to work.

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Speaker 2: In the question justice, can we structure it better? Can

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Speaker 2: we organize it better so that not everything shuts down,

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Speaker 2: but we scale things. Some people stay here to keep

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Speaker 2: business going as usual, some people take off and we

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Speaker 2: rotate this possibly over the years, always the possibility of

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Speaker 2: working remotely. Maybe we start using that more during the

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Speaker 2: summer break as well. I think it just needs to

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Speaker 2: be a smarter way. Nobody denies that people need a

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Speaker 2: break and deserve a break because these are hard workers.

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Speaker 2: We work long hours. We just sometimes doing structure as

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Speaker 2: well less we could very good point.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Christopher, appreciate it. Christoph Schumacher, a professor of

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Speaker 1: Innovation and Economics of Massive University. If we're going to

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Speaker 1: do that, we're if we're going to stagger it, my

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Speaker 1: bags the summer. You can take the winter off. Are

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Speaker 1: we hard workers? I thought we had a productivity crisis.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I only worked three hours a day.

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Speaker 1: Did you see that text before? I just come in

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Speaker 1: at six? Do do Mike's show? Go home? It's brilliant.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you add up my contribution to the show,

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Speaker 1: it's about sixteen minutes. Yeah at tops tops, no wonder,

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Speaker 1: I don't have any leave. You press buttons and sometimes

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Speaker 1: you just forget as well, so it's probably only fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.