Does extra spending on bars, entertainment, not cancel it out?
In: Economics
One could argue that one less day of work is one less day of production. Less production means less product, means less GDP.
One could also argue, however, that one day off of celebration means everyone is happier when they come back to work, and that they will be more productive because of that, resulting in a net positive. This is the argument for a 4 day work week which has proven successful in certain industries. So I really wouldn’t worry
No, extra spending on bars, restaurants, DIY stores etc does not come anywhere near to cancelling out the loss of activity from all of the factories, offices and shops in the land that closes for the day.
The UK’s national income in 2023 years was £2.3 trillion. If we assume (inaccurately) that it is earned evenly across the year, then every day the country makes about £6.2bn (£2.2tn/365). It seems reasonable to assume there is more economic activity on an average Tuesday than on Sunday. So you might say that every Monday we take as a public holiday, if we lost all activity we might lose even more than £6.2bn.
Now in practice we don’t lose anything like all that. There are lots of businesses that do keep operating. There’s lots of economic activity that carries on regardless of holidays. There are days (Friday) where productivity is lower than other days and the impact of a holiday would be less. There are businesses that do *better* on holidays than on regular days.
But on a net basis, across the whole economy, the costs are estimated to be higher than the benefits.
The average person in the UK is paid £170.5 per day. Companies dont pay employees what they are worth, each employee actually contributes about 2x their own salary in value.
Soooooo unless the average person blows £300 partying in a single day, ABSOLUTLY NOT.
Almost everyone in the UK works, or contributes to the GDP in some way in their day to day life. Not everyone cares about football (shocking I know) or doing stuff on bank holidays.
In addition to this, while not every employment contract includes clauses for additional pay on holidays, just having a reduced employed pool means that the cost of business for those running on those days is more expensive, either directly or indirectly.
Running any kind of holiday also increases the cost of a lot of public services that deal with people after doing fun things. Cleanup crews, policing, emergency health/fire services, to name a few. Specially with a national holiday aimed at the concept of celebrating, these are bound to be higher than the average summer holiday.
Brits also tend to overdo it with parties, specially around sporting, as was seen at the Euros themselves, which is a blessing and a curse.
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