Oh, that's a really interesting response - I had no sense of a reason for the fundamental difference, just dismissing as another 'Americans are weird' thing. But it does tie up so many points of what I observe as your nation's weirdness.

Of course, we have many dreadful things going on in our labour market at the moment, such as a minimum wage below that is less than the living wage, and the sudden proliferation of 'zero hours' contracts, but these are - I hope - aberrations.