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The four-day workweek

A post of a ranting nature...

OleksiyRybakov

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Some politicians in Finland are currently discussing a switch to a workweek where people will have to work for 4 days a week instead of 5 and for 6 hours a day instead of 8. In Germany some companies also plan to introduce such a week. What do you think about this concept? Also, do you believe that at some point we might achieve a situation where people will start trading their time profitably?

Edit: I have removed the incorrect information.
 
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GuestUser4aMPs1

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As an employer, I don't really care about # of workdays / hours so long as the work gets done.

So I welcome the change. Most of the time people spend at work is wasteful / goofing off anyway.
 

Antti

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Finland is switching to a workweek where people will have to work for 4 days a week instead of 5 and for 6 hours a day instead of 8. In Germany some companies also plan to introduce such a week. What do you think about this concept? Also, do you believe that at some point we might achieve a situation where people will start trading their time profitably?
This not true. The idea has been floated by left wing politicians but it is just empty words to court their simple minded voters. Nothing is being actually done to move to that direction. I doubt it will ever happen unless automation drastically reduces the need for human labor.
 
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OleksiyRybakov

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This not true. The idea has been floated by left wing politicians but it is just empty words to court their simple minded voters. Nothing is being actually done to move to that direction. I doubt it will ever happen unless automation drastically reduces the need for human labor.
Thank you for the correction and I apologize for spreading incorrect information. What do you think about the idea itself?
 
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Antti

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Thank you for the correction and I apologize for spreading incorrect information. What do you think about the idea itself?
Well there are many aspects to this. I think one important thing to note is that when politicians talk about this the idea is that hours are reduced but monthly pay stays the same. Here are some thoughts in no particular order:

- Time is the most valuable asset so for a worker this would be great. More time to spend with your family, exercise, do your hobbies, what's not to like?
- If I think about my background as a mechanical engineer, I think 6 hours a day is pretty close to how much design work you can effectively do day in, day out. I tended to get most work done by noon and slack much more in the afternoon. I think most people are like this but I'm sure there are exceptions. In a managerial role you can clock a lot of hours but a lot of the time you are just sitting in a meeting but your mind is elsewhere.
- As a business owner I guess it depends on what kind of business you have. If you employ coders I guess you shouldn't really care how many hours they work. You just want the work done for a certain amount of $. But what if you have a metal workshop or a restaurant? This would increase the labor cost a lot. You would have to either find ways to increase productivity or raise your prices. Would this lead to more manufacturing being moved offshore?
- Finland has a huge public sector. This is where I could see them actually implementing this. I sure hope it doesn't happen, it would just increase the burden of private sector tax payer. Public sector already works less hours and has longer holidays than the private sector.
- Right now there's a shortage of manual workers such as truck drivers, restaurant workers etc. Implementing 4-day workweek would make this problem much worse.
- I guess in the future if less human labor is needed due to AI and automation this would make a lot of sense.
 

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A better solution is 6 hours / day, 6 days / week. The additional day sounds bad, but this is more in line with human nature and productivity IMO. It is less than 40h / week, provided you have a short commute.
 

woken

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I think part of France has free Wednesdays in some industries.

It works for them.

As an employee, you should welcome it.

As an employer, you should welcome it.

I’ve always advocated for less hours if the same amount of work could be done in a shorter timeframe.
 
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