Even if it is not found to be acceptable now (which might sadly turn out to be the case even in Sweden), at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay.
(I.e. the theory is that people are so much happier with shorter working hours that they come up with the same productivity. However, with a drop from 8 to 6 hours this doesn't really happen, although the productivity does not drop 25 % as it would without any dynamic effects).
No: you misunderstand this line of thinking, as the goal of this subthread is not to increase efficiency or health but to mitigate unemployment in the wake of automation. The argument is similar to a minumum wage increase, where we pay people more for the same work, and about which you can make the same backhanded complaint; only instead of helping only the people with jobs (as a minimum wage increase doesn't affect you if you do not already have a wage), it brings more people into the job force while having the same effect on the bottom line of businesses (that they are paying more for the same output, only instead of giving more money to one person they are giving that money to more people). The real issues are that it assumes work that scales well to having more people involved and that it breaks the market for low-value work; but the latter issue is the same core problem with mimumum wage increases, and the person who commented with this understands, saying this is only a way to transition a society which refuses to admit basic income as a better solution due to the "welfare state" argument (which is really the same reasonable defense of the minimum wage, as well).
We may be further from the jobs drying out than we think we are, and humans may have an ability to generate "work" for themselves greater than is generally thought. Among possible explanations anyway, there are surely many more :)
And it hasn't been a massive success, except that employees mostly like it. But the unemployment level is roughly the same 10 % as it was before 2000, and the last time French government did not have budget deficit is still 1974.
I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work.
Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to?
It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.
> shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer
In the US at least they already do, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. US companies only have to pay benefits for employees to work >= 40 hours/week. So 2 employees working 20 hours/week costs less than 1 employee working 40 hours/week. (Of course this is not beneficial to the employees.)
> I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work.
Because it's the only way to keep the ongoing and increasingly shaky fiction that "we need everybody to work" hanging together? Foolish patches on the status quo, like "pay people more for less work", are the only way forward until we adult up and realize that the welfare state is both inevitable and beneficial (even to the self-anointed "makers" so busily hoisting themselves up on their crosses).
Getting past this fiction is only the beginning. Many, many people find meaning in their lives through performing a task that others deem necessary. When nobody is necessary, the economy decouples from the people. We actually have examples of societies that operate like this right now: Eritrea [0] for one. The government of that country has decided it has no real use for most of its people. It makes business deals with foreign resource extraction companies directly. Many people live in abject poverty while the government enriches itself and does little/nothing to help them.
Assuming we do reach a state where we no longer sustain the fiction that we need people to work, the question becomes "How do the unnecessariat [1] justify their own existance to those who control capital?"
So ordinarily I'd just upvote this and move on, but that blog post under [1] is fantastic and deserves all the encouragement to read it that I can muster.
The problem is that the highest benefits of reduced work week is for worker having repeated stressful work which sadly are often work positions with relatively low pay. This means that for most of them, they cannot support a pay cut.
Going from 5k€ to 4k€ per month after tax is not the same thing as going from 2.5k€ to 2k€...
I'm aware of what Monaco is, and you are right, it is small. It is a home for billionaires, as is the USA, India, and China, although the density both geographically and per capita is higher in Monaco. However, Monaco is responsive to the question, it's just not a response you like.
The wiki article you cite states it is a European country, EU isn't the original question - "Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 (0.78 sq mi) and a population of about 37,800; it is the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world."
I think it's important to note that full employment is a thing of the past and ultimately I would expect humanity to leave behind this idea that everyone needs to work. What did we come up with all this automation for? To enrich the few? Or to make work less and less of an issue for everyone? We are entering an age where more and more work is being done by robots. We either punish those who get replaced by machines or we craft a community in which people are empowered to enjoy life.
^ -- THIS totally! There's plenty of resources, and human ingenuity to make the poorest person in the world live life like mid-to-upper middle class in America does. Why can't everyone start out at THAT quality of living, and move up if they so choose... a safe home, place to go to school, etc?
I just read a short story called Manna about where U.S. workers were displaced by robots and automation, and the 10% lived in luxury, the rest were put in styrofoam living areas, given meals, but weren't allowed to leave the compound, much like a concentration camp, or prison.
Some people though through inheritance, etc were given 'tickets' to go live in the Australia project, which was where everyone got 1000 credits to spend as they like weekly in a catalog of things like clothes, etc.. They got housing and food provided at no cost. They could do whatever money wasn't really a thing, people worked if they wanted, did scientific research, etc...
What about the people who enjoy working? The dignity of receiving an honest wage for an honest day's work? The satisfaction for providing for their family? For some people, their work is the only thing that keeps them in shape. My father, when he was no longer able to find work, and now after looking for 10 years is too old, literally sits on the couch for 16 hours a day watching television and smoking cigarettes. He would do anything to work.
This thinking on here that we are doing humanity this huge service by automating all their pesky little maniacal jobs away is insane, and it needs to stop. There is more than one world view out there.
Something about when Professors feel the need to curse to look cool throws me off the wrong way, dunno, call me old fashioned.
I am making myself familiar with Mr. James Livingston -- it's an argument that has been made many times before -- that there aren't enough jobs to go around, that the private sector doesn't really create all the jobs, and ends with some form of UBI. I have heard it a thousand times. I still remain unconvinced.
> I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work.
Because the "standard" work week is an artificial construct that has arbitrary definition. Also because this is a way to bridge the gap between accepting universal income and re-evaluating what is the role and importance of work/job in the society.
The problem is that, capital will flee any company that tries this to more efficient competitors. As long as it is a public company, there is no easy way to try this without any repercussions to the stock price.
Countries can legislate this, but they will not be able to prevent their economies from stagnating like some of the european countries. (Flight of capital, companies moving their workforce to other places etc.)
The only way (as I see it) is if we, as a society accept lesser returns on our investments (via our 401Ks and pension plans) and allow that to be reflected in the compensation and productivity of the workforce. With the increasing life expectancy, even that can turn out to be a problem in the long run, but we cross that bridge when we reach it.....
This is very true, it's all noble and such, but for now now markets and investors follow quarterly earnings guidance and most executives are not even allowed to make decisions that improve civilisation - the role of a company is to make money not make everyone happy.
Let's work with that as a starting point and not some unrealistic ideas.
Why would they do that instead of doing what they've done until now and accumulating wealth at an accelerating rate? Jobs have been getting less stable for a while already.
"at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay"
That doesn't check out.
Either working shorter hours will produce the same result. This is true in knowledge workers etc., being more rested and well-being, and cutting on jabbering in the kitchen, you can produce the same net result easily in 5-6 hours a day instead of being overworked, sitting like a zombie for 10 hours. Then, while you pay the same for shorter hours, there will be no incentive to employ new workers, you pay the same, you get the same results, it is only done in shorter hours and pay-per-hour increased, but you don't need more workforce.
Or working shorter hours will produce less results. This is true in "mechanical" jobs - e.g., car production lines, or in "overwatch" jobs - e.g., power plant control rooms. Then you will need more workers and have no incentive to pay the same for less results and then pay the same for new workers to make up the results. Yes, you can pay the same numerically for less hours (i.e. when forced by law), but now producing a unit of car, flour, bread, delivering a package from e-shop, programming a feature in software system costs more and the currency will be devalued. So you will work less hours, get the same pay (numerically), but for the same number, you will be able to buy less hours from others (whether it is a product or a service).
The first question we should ask is where does the extra value come from (not money, but value, and you'll see why in a moment).
One answer may be automation, and typically, the excess value is passed on to the customer in the form of lower cost. (That's why we ought to talk about value, even if we can't easily measure it).
One alternative is not to pass on the value to the customer, but to give it to the workers. You could do this by reducing hours, increasing pay, or some combination.
There are two problems with this:
1. You can't do this in an open, market economy. The government could do this with government jobs where they have a monopoly.
2. It is kind of arbitrary that you decide to value this particular worker over this particular consumer.
Another solution is to give everyone a basic income with all the extra value (collected as taxes, roughly equally) that automation generates. So the seller might give a discount to the customer but the rest of the value would go to the state.
I think the way forward is some sort of basic income, even if that's just 25% of average salaries across the country, so that then the company can employ MORE people, but make them work 25% less, and pay them 25% less making them happier, healthier, and the gov't picks up the bill for the lost 25% income to the worker... It'd also be a good experiment for gbi in general.
Let's imagine that something you want costs 10 hours of work, nominally.
What I'm saying is that the real cost is actually 12.5 hours of work: 10 hours to purchase the item and 2.5 hours to enable a system in which you can purchase the item at all.
If you're not willing to work the extra 2.5 hours, you're actually externalizing (part of) the cost of your perk -- by not paying part of its manufacturing and delivery cost (ie, the portions of those which rely on society).
Arguments against paying taxes while benefitting from societal systems is just arguing you deserve a discount on what you want. Selfish and dishonest accounting.
I pay about 60% of my income in taxes. How much more should I pay so you and your friends can live without working? I also donate 10% of my income to the causes I care about. Should I be forced to give that income to the things you think are better than my choices?
What makes you think I'm not on the "would have to pay more" side of these issues? That seems uncharitable (and an ad hominem), to assume I'd only hold that view if I were consuming, not paying.
Im not saying that there aren't examples of excesses or that deductions for charitable giving aren't a good idea. Just that the view there should be no taxes or that it's somehow your money being taken away are both mistaken (and fundamentally rely on the notion you should be allowed to externalize costs).
I really don't care what side you're actually on, I care about what side you're espousing. I want to understand why you want to force me to pay for people that don't want to work?
As to your point:
"the view there should be no taxes"
I think killing puppies is bad. That has about as much relevance to the discussion as your comment does.
Your comment "it's somehow your money being taken away [is] mistaken" is simply specious and illogical. You want my government, which gains money through taxation, to provide for people who don't want to work.
Are you suggesting I wouldn't pay more to support your program that gives money to people who don't want to work?
I don't want to force you to pay for them -- you're welcome to not work, and you'll live (and have the basics).
If you want luxuries, then you have to work for them, and that includes paying the cost of using the systems that enable you to work. You don't get to use systems to earn luxuries and expect others to pay for them.
My position is that we're very wealthy (as a society) and luxuries (or just running up the scoreboard) are pretty motivating, so we don't need to organize society in a fundamentally coercise manner, merely make luxuries more expensive.
The amount of luxury cost increase relative to the amount of coercion and suffering we could alleviate means society is better off.
I would even go so far as to say that we'll end up wealthier as a result, but that's a controversial position.
They're going to tax us no matter what, why not put it to good use instead of spend 50 million on a better toilet, or a pork project in their home district?
Let's talk USA. About 320,000,000 citizens (presumably basic income is for everyone). Let's assume $150 a week (it being $15/hr for 1/4 of an optimistic work week). That gives us 48 billion dollars that have to come from cutting existing spending in your scenario.
Cutting your better toilet gets us about a tenth of a percent to this week's goal!
You're not going to have basic income without raising taxes a huge amount. Current tax revenue per year is about $2 trillion, which covers about 2/3 of the current federal budget. If you decided to cut all that spending and spread it equally among the population would be like 6 grand a year, not nearly enough to live on.
It seems a particularly poor choice of workplace to try this. Care homes need to maintain certain staffing levels, 24 hours a day, so there is a hard limit to the benefits that can be gained from improved productivity.
It's not that it's not the easiest place. It's that it's impossible. If you have a minimum required staffing level, there is no scope for savings from increased productivity. They might be able to accomplish all their tasks better in half the time, but they'd still need to pay someone else to be on site for the rest of the time.
For me, an important takeaway from reading this article was to consider the type of employment they trialled it on.
The trial was in a retirement home, which is by design somewhere that needs 24x7 cover. This means that any reduction in hours needs to be covered by more staff, obviously necessitating more expense.
What would be far more interesting to me, is a trial on an industry like software development where output isn't measured in number of hours but more in the product created. It would be interesting to see if a reduction in hours negatively or positively affected the quality/quantity of code produced.
Software industry is driven by plenty of workers where work hours equal to output, maybe not development but then in the software industry in many cases development isn't the bulk of the workforce.
Sure everyone can be an engineer, I've seen companies that give a title of "customer services engineer" to their phone banks, but at the end support staff which unless you work at a startup can be as high as 80% of the work force does need to be present for as many hours as possible, even 24/7 in many cases.
sure but I specifically said I was interested in seeing a trial where hours worked doesn't equal output, because that would be an interesting comparison to this trial, didn't make any comment about "the software industry"
This headline is terrible. The issue is not the cost; it's political will even by the social democratic party. As it says in the caption of the main image:
> Toyota has been using the shorter workday there for more than a decade.
This is typically lazy American reporting when considering different political systems/paradigms.
No no no. Its not just a matter of political will. Its a question of the type of busuinees and its individual situation. the whole idea that this can be applied generally is whats wrong. Productivity simply doesent work like that.
If anything is lazy its the idea that poltical view is all that matter.
All in all, the HN posts were not that bad, but in social media - Facebook and Twitter - I saw plenty of overly optimistic, baseless junk spouting the magnificence of how Sweden just went to 6-hour workweek for the nation and productivity gains were so huge. It was actually depressing...
Well, obviously people are happier if they work a shorter day and get the same salary, and the productivity per hour may actually increase somewhat. But it won't reach the productivity of 8 (or 7.5) hours.
Companies be required to offer various plans, at the employees discretion, that have different pay rates. For instance, working 75% of 40 hours might get you 80% of the salary. (with the hope that you are at least a bit more productive during your more limited hours than you would be if doing 40 hours)
Employees shouldn't be discriminated based on which plan they take. They just have to give a couple months notice if they change plans, especially if it is a small company where the impact might be greater.
Benefits is a complication, but personally I'd prefer health insurance etc was just separated from employment. Regardless, if you work less hours, you'd probably have to chip in more toward insurance.
This may still be costly to employers, but if all companies have to do it, it should work out. (sure, there are foreign competitors, but that is a different issue) And this can potentially help with unemployment.
Google offers this today - you can go on part time schedule if you want, and your salary / vacation days / RSU vesting is adjusted accordingly. You get benefits if you are at least 50%.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] thread(I.e. the theory is that people are so much happier with shorter working hours that they come up with the same productivity. However, with a drop from 8 to 6 hours this doesn't really happen, although the productivity does not drop 25 % as it would without any dynamic effects).
The market distinguishes between the users (eg - people using MS Excel or Google search) and the initiators (in this case Microsoft or Google).
Put in another way - would people be as efficient if we remove the tool they are using for the increased technological efficiency?
We may be further from the jobs drying out than we think we are, and humans may have an ability to generate "work" for themselves greater than is generally thought. Among possible explanations anyway, there are surely many more :)
And it hasn't been a massive success, except that employees mostly like it. But the unemployment level is roughly the same 10 % as it was before 2000, and the last time French government did not have budget deficit is still 1974.
Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to?
It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.
In the US at least they already do, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. US companies only have to pay benefits for employees to work >= 40 hours/week. So 2 employees working 20 hours/week costs less than 1 employee working 40 hours/week. (Of course this is not beneficial to the employees.)
Because it's the only way to keep the ongoing and increasingly shaky fiction that "we need everybody to work" hanging together? Foolish patches on the status quo, like "pay people more for less work", are the only way forward until we adult up and realize that the welfare state is both inevitable and beneficial (even to the self-anointed "makers" so busily hoisting themselves up on their crosses).
Getting past this fiction is only the beginning. Many, many people find meaning in their lives through performing a task that others deem necessary. When nobody is necessary, the economy decouples from the people. We actually have examples of societies that operate like this right now: Eritrea [0] for one. The government of that country has decided it has no real use for most of its people. It makes business deals with foreign resource extraction companies directly. Many people live in abject poverty while the government enriches itself and does little/nothing to help them.
Assuming we do reach a state where we no longer sustain the fiction that we need people to work, the question becomes "How do the unnecessariat [1] justify their own existance to those who control capital?"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea
[1] https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
Going from 5k€ to 4k€ per month after tax is not the same thing as going from 2.5k€ to 2k€...
Monaco is a small rock < 1 sq mile that is a fiscal paradise and a home for billionaires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco
I just read a short story called Manna about where U.S. workers were displaced by robots and automation, and the 10% lived in luxury, the rest were put in styrofoam living areas, given meals, but weren't allowed to leave the compound, much like a concentration camp, or prison.
Some people though through inheritance, etc were given 'tickets' to go live in the Australia project, which was where everyone got 1000 credits to spend as they like weekly in a catalog of things like clothes, etc.. They got housing and food provided at no cost. They could do whatever money wasn't really a thing, people worked if they wanted, did scientific research, etc...
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
This thinking on here that we are doing humanity this huge service by automating all their pesky little maniacal jobs away is insane, and it needs to stop. There is more than one world view out there.
Related, interesting read: https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but...
I am making myself familiar with Mr. James Livingston -- it's an argument that has been made many times before -- that there aren't enough jobs to go around, that the private sector doesn't really create all the jobs, and ends with some form of UBI. I have heard it a thousand times. I still remain unconvinced.
People working less because they do not need to work so long to finance their desires is one way to achieve that.
> What did we come up with all this automation for?
To drive down the cost of goods and services that no longer need a human component.
Because the "standard" work week is an artificial construct that has arbitrary definition. Also because this is a way to bridge the gap between accepting universal income and re-evaluating what is the role and importance of work/job in the society.
Countries can legislate this, but they will not be able to prevent their economies from stagnating like some of the european countries. (Flight of capital, companies moving their workforce to other places etc.)
The only way (as I see it) is if we, as a society accept lesser returns on our investments (via our 401Ks and pension plans) and allow that to be reflected in the compensation and productivity of the workforce. With the increasing life expectancy, even that can turn out to be a problem in the long run, but we cross that bridge when we reach it.....
That doesn't check out.
Either working shorter hours will produce the same result. This is true in knowledge workers etc., being more rested and well-being, and cutting on jabbering in the kitchen, you can produce the same net result easily in 5-6 hours a day instead of being overworked, sitting like a zombie for 10 hours. Then, while you pay the same for shorter hours, there will be no incentive to employ new workers, you pay the same, you get the same results, it is only done in shorter hours and pay-per-hour increased, but you don't need more workforce.
Or working shorter hours will produce less results. This is true in "mechanical" jobs - e.g., car production lines, or in "overwatch" jobs - e.g., power plant control rooms. Then you will need more workers and have no incentive to pay the same for less results and then pay the same for new workers to make up the results. Yes, you can pay the same numerically for less hours (i.e. when forced by law), but now producing a unit of car, flour, bread, delivering a package from e-shop, programming a feature in software system costs more and the currency will be devalued. So you will work less hours, get the same pay (numerically), but for the same number, you will be able to buy less hours from others (whether it is a product or a service).
One answer may be automation, and typically, the excess value is passed on to the customer in the form of lower cost. (That's why we ought to talk about value, even if we can't easily measure it).
One alternative is not to pass on the value to the customer, but to give it to the workers. You could do this by reducing hours, increasing pay, or some combination.
There are two problems with this:
1. You can't do this in an open, market economy. The government could do this with government jobs where they have a monopoly.
2. It is kind of arbitrary that you decide to value this particular worker over this particular consumer.
Another solution is to give everyone a basic income with all the extra value (collected as taxes, roughly equally) that automation generates. So the seller might give a discount to the customer but the rest of the value would go to the state.
Then people can decide how they want to spend it.
Your income is a benefit conferred by the society in which you live, so it makes sense to return part of it to enable that society to exist.
What I'm saying is that the real cost is actually 12.5 hours of work: 10 hours to purchase the item and 2.5 hours to enable a system in which you can purchase the item at all.
If you're not willing to work the extra 2.5 hours, you're actually externalizing (part of) the cost of your perk -- by not paying part of its manufacturing and delivery cost (ie, the portions of those which rely on society).
Arguments against paying taxes while benefitting from societal systems is just arguing you deserve a discount on what you want. Selfish and dishonest accounting.
Im not saying that there aren't examples of excesses or that deductions for charitable giving aren't a good idea. Just that the view there should be no taxes or that it's somehow your money being taken away are both mistaken (and fundamentally rely on the notion you should be allowed to externalize costs).
As to your point:
"the view there should be no taxes"
I think killing puppies is bad. That has about as much relevance to the discussion as your comment does.
Your comment "it's somehow your money being taken away [is] mistaken" is simply specious and illogical. You want my government, which gains money through taxation, to provide for people who don't want to work.
Are you suggesting I wouldn't pay more to support your program that gives money to people who don't want to work?
If you want luxuries, then you have to work for them, and that includes paying the cost of using the systems that enable you to work. You don't get to use systems to earn luxuries and expect others to pay for them.
My position is that we're very wealthy (as a society) and luxuries (or just running up the scoreboard) are pretty motivating, so we don't need to organize society in a fundamentally coercise manner, merely make luxuries more expensive.
The amount of luxury cost increase relative to the amount of coercion and suffering we could alleviate means society is better off.
I would even go so far as to say that we'll end up wealthier as a result, but that's a controversial position.
Cutting your better toilet gets us about a tenth of a percent to this week's goal!
You're not going to have basic income without raising taxes a huge amount. Current tax revenue per year is about $2 trillion, which covers about 2/3 of the current federal budget. If you decided to cut all that spending and spread it equally among the population would be like 6 grand a year, not nearly enough to live on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
US: 596.0B
Target easily reachable.
And that's before factoring in lawsuits.
The trial was in a retirement home, which is by design somewhere that needs 24x7 cover. This means that any reduction in hours needs to be covered by more staff, obviously necessitating more expense.
What would be far more interesting to me, is a trial on an industry like software development where output isn't measured in number of hours but more in the product created. It would be interesting to see if a reduction in hours negatively or positively affected the quality/quantity of code produced.
Sure everyone can be an engineer, I've seen companies that give a title of "customer services engineer" to their phone banks, but at the end support staff which unless you work at a startup can be as high as 80% of the work force does need to be present for as many hours as possible, even 24/7 in many cases.
> Toyota has been using the shorter workday there for more than a decade.
This is typically lazy American reporting when considering different political systems/paradigms.
If anything is lazy its the idea that poltical view is all that matter.
1.5x pay at 30 hours
2x pay at 40 hours
2014-06-03 Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday (washingtonpost.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459
2014-07-14 Sweden's Six-Hour Workday Experiment Officially Kicks Off Tomorrow (entrepreneur.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162
2015-10-01 Some companies in Sweden are testing a six-hour work day (fastcoexist.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635
2016-04-22 Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance (thelocal.se) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538
All in all, the HN posts were not that bad, but in social media - Facebook and Twitter - I saw plenty of overly optimistic, baseless junk spouting the magnificence of how Sweden just went to 6-hour workweek for the nation and productivity gains were so huge. It was actually depressing...
Well, obviously people are happier if they work a shorter day and get the same salary, and the productivity per hour may actually increase somewhat. But it won't reach the productivity of 8 (or 7.5) hours.
Qatar has literally brought in masses under indentured servitude to build their workforce.
Not exactly countries with workforce practices that I'd like to see emulated in the USA.
Companies be required to offer various plans, at the employees discretion, that have different pay rates. For instance, working 75% of 40 hours might get you 80% of the salary. (with the hope that you are at least a bit more productive during your more limited hours than you would be if doing 40 hours)
Employees shouldn't be discriminated based on which plan they take. They just have to give a couple months notice if they change plans, especially if it is a small company where the impact might be greater.
Benefits is a complication, but personally I'd prefer health insurance etc was just separated from employment. Regardless, if you work less hours, you'd probably have to chip in more toward insurance.
This may still be costly to employers, but if all companies have to do it, it should work out. (sure, there are foreign competitors, but that is a different issue) And this can potentially help with unemployment.