Didn’t France try this or propose this years ago? Isn’t the problem that you would create more overhead due to the additional hires, in addition to having to train more people. I can think of a ton more issues. It could of course be better than the alternative.
Yeah I mean the alternative is taxing the 5-day-a-week workers and transferring the money to unemployed people, who while out of work have their skills languish. 4 day a week work-weeks seem like quite a cost-effective crisis response for working around a sheer shortage of jobs.
gov't spending on infrastructure and productive assets to create jobs is, to me, a better choice than to mandate a reduction in the amount of work a worker can perform.
Of course, the option to have a 4-day week should be on the table, but this shouldn't be mandated by decree - but instead, a choice the worker and the employer can negotiate and come to a market driven agreement. Otherwise, you'd be building in market inefficiencies, and this leads to wastage.
If people want to work five days a week it's probably because they need the money and if there's enough of them to displace other workgroups then why is the party that wants to work harder being penalized? It seems bizarrely European to feel like it's unfair to let people decide how much they want to work.
A very American assumption, that a lack of regulation equates to more freedom.
In both cases, the individual is limited in their choice. Without legal restrictions, the individuals choice is restricted by economic and social constraints. E.g. in low paying jobs, less hours is not an option, because of low pay, and in "high" paying jobs, it isn't because you won't have the job long. Precisely because of the implication you give "more hours -> wanting to work harder". And partly because your employer doesn't want to go through the hassle of having to handle different work schedules, managing more people.
The "European" variant is a collective choice countering the socioeconomic pressure.
In Europe you are "forced" to have a medical insurance, in the US, you are free to choose/lose it with your employment.
I would claim, socioeconomic constraints are limiting your choices much more, than laws do.
I believe there's a large difference between not interfering with someone's choices, and the idea of compelling others to accommodate anyone's choice.
That is: if I have the opportunity & desire to work on something, you shouldn't interfere with it. But me having the desire to work on something shouldn't require you go provide the opportunity.
A belief is not a very compelling argument. Frankly, in the context of a job market I see both as interference.
But whatever our beliefs, we already have sets of rules, legal and social, which limit people's choices in the job market. The ability to hire people is a privilege which comes with responsibilities, part of which is a responsibility to society. This is why developed countries have minimum wages.
Now as to what extent or whether at all, you can place limitations on employers without placing limitations on employees, now that is an argument worth exploring.
where do people get to decide how much to work? pretty much everywhere working hours are dictated by the employer.
if people want to work 5 days a week, it's because 5 days is the norm, and noone gives much choice.
the norm used to be 6 days, then 5.5 days, and it was a big campaign in germany to get it down to 5.
btw the current norm is actually 35 hours for office work, 7 hours per day, or, if you do 8 hours per day 4.5 days. now they want to shave another 7 hours of that to 28.
all such a regulation does is to define what is the default. it does not dictate that i am only allowed to work those hours. i am still free to negotiate less hours if i want to. negotiating more is harder because of overtime rules but it's possible.
It would definitely cause complications, but if it's economically sustainable, shouldn't incentivizing additional hiring be a societal goal? Not only would it reduce unemployment, it would improve work-life balance.
The article didn't provide details, but I'm imagining if workers are capped at four day workweeks, but businesses still operate five to seven days a week, then you can get more coverage without burnout.
Certainly there would be overhead of not just more people to train and coordination between people operating on different four day windows, but frankly, what is management being paid to do if not figure out problems such as this? Already you hear about sectors from medicine to law to investment banking where despite earning high salaries, workers are forced to endure ridiculously long hours and deal with high stress. Why not spread the workload?
It doesn't have to be just sustainable, it has to be competitive. Companies can just decide invest into automation instead, or close shop and move production to other countries.
Germany is a relatively low-wage country considering its productivity, but also its factories are highly automated. If these variables change, production will continue to move to cheaper European countries, just like US production moves to Mexico.
> It doesn't have to be just sustainable, it has to be competitive.
Tax the shit out of companies that pull these kind of stunts to skirt the law. Tariff their products at the border.
If those countries are on the EU, Germany can use its clout to "force" these kind of rules on other countries. This soft power is real, as seen in Greece in 2013.
If the Visegrad countries complain, kick Hungary out of the EU for their rule-of-law violations, it's only several years out of date.
Most of this could fit under the "COVID" umbrella.
The weekly numbers on the map are off. In Switzerland a full-time job is usually 40 to 42 hours a week. Some professions work much longer. 48 hours a week is not extraordinary.
Probably they took the average of all employments. Because many people have a part-time job the average is pushed down. This makes the numbers less useful.
Which shows how inadequate the statistic is for the discussion of the subject. The reduction of working hours applies only to a subset of work (industry full-time employment).
I would bet the average is so low because of a large part of low paying part-time jobs, which are heavily subventioned / pay no or low social security & taxes, saved likely also the disincentivation of pmarried mothers working full time (not by law, but in effect).
Using part time to discriminate is more of a US phenomenon. Most older people and people with kids prefer 80% jobs which have correctly prorated salary, so 80% may average higher salary than 100% in these countries. Other jobs also. There are still some connections in pay like food service is open to students, part time, and lower paid.
from the article:
In 2018, it won workers the right to reduce their working week from 35 hours to 28 for two years to increase flexibility, particularly for workers with caring responsibilities.
this is not talking about averages, but about full-time work hours.
> At 34.2 hours, Germany already has one of the shortest average working weeks in Europe. And there are loud voices calling for it to be shorter still.
And then the "graphic of usual hours of work of employees", and then goes on with 35h per week (in the metal working industry).
As others pointed out, 40h per week is quite often the standard, the lower average cited right in the beginning can be explained differently, than large parts of the population enjoying a relaxed safe full-time employment with less than 40h per week, which is kind of implied by the setup of the article.
but in germany 35 hours IS the standard (not just in the metal industry) . if 34.5 is the average, then that's not far from the standard. so the claim that part time work influences the measured average does not really fit.
Then you better correct the Wikipedia page listing the nominal working hours most of them exceeding the 35h (https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wochenarbeitszeit), and I and the people further up in the thread have to sue our former /current employers, which contracted us with 40h/week.
all those entries list the hours in specific industries. what we can't tell from that table is how many jobs that actually covers.
ig-metall is the largest union representing about 2/5 of all unionized employees in germany. keep in mind that in most cases a union agreement is applied to all employees, not just the union members, so many more jobs than union members are affected.
that said, there is likely something wrong with that 34.5 average because i found other articles claiming an average of 37.5 and yet another of 41 hours.
while i still believe that the 35 hour week has a large impact on the result, it is less large than i thought.
> ig-metall is the largest union representing about 2/5 of all unionized employees in germany. keep in mind that in most cases a union agreement is applied to all employees, not just the union members, so many more jobs than union members are affected.
Yes, but those union agreements are per industry and/or company, depending if there is an industry agreement or not. That's why the hours are listed per industry.
And they only apply to non-members, if the union has the mandate to negotiate on behalf of all workers, e.g. there is not another competing union with a sizable membership (not sure about the exact criteria).
I worked at SAP, and ig-metall is a union there (not the only one). Different industry, no industry-wide union agreements. Ergo 40h per week. This is also the default by law, if the exact hours are not defined.
I've seen studies that indicate that reducing the work week can improve productivity per hour. It can be a net gain, allowing people to be more focused, make fewer mistakes, etc.
Sort of like when you pay people a bit better than average for the industry, thereby fostering improved employee retention and lower turnover. It pays for itself over time and has additional benefits down the line.
This seems like a good idea to me. The 40 hour work week grew out of technology improving productivity such that some people were making good money and then there was higher unemployment to go with that. It was intended to share the wealth, primarily. Now we look back on normal working conditions prior to that and deem them to be inhumane.
And though his ideas were innovative for the time, if fewer working hours were really beneficial for factory work, I suspect we’d see it reflected in competitie industries. People now are more aware of how to optimize.
Personally, I am a big fan of the four day work week, I just do not believe it will maintain productivity levels. I would sooner believe a six hour five day week would.
My guess is that probably falls under "different strokes for different folks."
Some people really, really like having a regular three-day weekend and will do just fine getting in their hours in four days. Others may well prefer a five day week with fewer hours per day.
If we could cut hours and give people choices as to how to allocate them, more people might get on board with the idea.
I recently had to end working 32 hours on 4 days. I don’t think, that people sitting in the office 35 hours on 5 days are somehow more productive. But Germany has another huge problem having whole industry building obsolete diesel cars, when world goes electric. These working hour discussions are a tip of an iceberg. The real question where to put hundred thousands of workers and engineers what aren’t needed for electric cars.
Aside from cars Germany has a thriving ecosystem of small to medium sized companies who specialised on certain things and are often world leading in their special segment. So I would not be too worried about engineers, more about people in manufacturing..
And yet they acted soooo late, that they are far behind now, due to capitalistic resistance to change (short term costly) and risk (management not being technical and scientific enough to see the future is electric). Seems they are not so wise after all.
In many jobs you can easily work 4 or less days a week in germany because there is a law that gives you the right to part time work. Obviously your wage is reduced accordingly.
My colleague had a baby. He would like to spend more time with the baby. He asked to reduce his hours. The boss said yes because its the law and we no longer live in the middle ages.
How does promotion work in that case? From what I've seen going part-time is essentially hitting a pause on your career goals, it's not sustainable for medium-long term.
It probably is a dead end promotion wise. But my impression is that there isn't much of a chance for promotions in most jobs here anyway. If you are trained in some craft in the vocational education system you get a job and do that job basically forever. Most common way to get higher up in that situation seems to be getting more formal education, either by becoming Master craftsmen (Meister) or by getting a college degree. Germany is very finicky about formal degrees.
If you already have a college degree things might be different. Still it seems to me that in those cases your best chances to climb the ladder is to switch jobs from time to time.
So if you realize there are no promotion for you in stock, or that you have to switch jobs anyway to progress your career, working part time is very much sustainable in the long run.
Also if you are lacking the formal education to achieve your career goals you could start working part to have more time to get your degree while working.
> It was easy but I had to give it up to get a promotion.
Which kind of implies a social pressure.
Would you claim that it is the same outside of line of work?
From what I understand, people who enjoy a large degree of freedom already, they can get those things relatively easy. Parental leave, working from home, part-time, all part of the privilege that comes with the job.
But that is a limited subset of society.
Middle-management or upper-management in IT? Outside of IT?
At least from what I hear from Germany, not working _overtime_ for middle- or upper-management, as a medical doctor at a university hospital, many research positions is considered "lack of commitment". Almost irregardless of what you deliver. Probably you won't get fired, but you have to be exceptionally good so it doesn't reflect badly on you.
More specifically he said "employees should not necessarily see their salary cut by the same amount". It's salary negotiation, it's not unusual to go into those with a high initial ask.
Economists (Keynes and others) in at the beginning of the 20th century projected that based on increasing productivity we would only be working about 15h a week by now. They actually did predict that this could become a significant problem, because many people need work for their personal fulfillment.
Now the productivity gains actually did happen, however what the economists didn't predict is that all the gains went to only benefit very few (essentially the holders of capital) and inequality would increase significantly preventing most people to reduce their work hours even if they wanted.
However, people also want to spend more money and have more things / higher standard of living than people had at that time.
I'm curious if you would adjust your own standard of living accordingly, you could finance it with a 15h workweek just fine. But this for sure does not apply to low wage jobs.
While inequality is now clearly on the rise (and it's a big problem), afaik there also have been times in history when it was consistently higher. https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality seems to have some good charts and context here.
Well, so this kind of thinking is really part of the problem. The number of hours you put into something should never matter. What matters is the value of the productivity. We should be getting paid on the marginal value of our labor, not the minimum we're willing to bear. In addition, if the job can get done in 15 hours, then we should get paid the same, regardless. It's the conflation of hours to productivity that's destructive in this conversation. They're not the same, and a reduction in the work week should not be a salary-reducing event.
Isn’t that one of the points of a salaried job versus hourly? You’re paid the same regardless of how long it takes you. Many companies sometimes don’t care if it takes you 5 or 10 hours to do the task as long as it’s done by the deadline.
It totally is, but companies don’t treat it that way. Most expect you to work at least 40 hours at all times, especially in office situations, and if you have to work overtime, that’s on you. So, company’s are having their cake and eating it to, while salaried folks are more likely to be abused by employers.
The problem lies in the "should" :)
I do agree that the conflation of hours and productivity is a problem here. But it's a very common one and most people don't have the freedom.
What I wanted to point out that there is not just one variable in play here. And there are some very practical problems which are not easy to solve. (Try explaining this to your employer and convincing him that this rule would indeed work for every employee he has. There are also jobs where hours and productivity are closer related. There are jobs where hours put in may be the best metric you have to measure output?)
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadOf course, the option to have a 4-day week should be on the table, but this shouldn't be mandated by decree - but instead, a choice the worker and the employer can negotiate and come to a market driven agreement. Otherwise, you'd be building in market inefficiencies, and this leads to wastage.
In both cases, the individual is limited in their choice. Without legal restrictions, the individuals choice is restricted by economic and social constraints. E.g. in low paying jobs, less hours is not an option, because of low pay, and in "high" paying jobs, it isn't because you won't have the job long. Precisely because of the implication you give "more hours -> wanting to work harder". And partly because your employer doesn't want to go through the hassle of having to handle different work schedules, managing more people.
The "European" variant is a collective choice countering the socioeconomic pressure.
In Europe you are "forced" to have a medical insurance, in the US, you are free to choose/lose it with your employment.
I would claim, socioeconomic constraints are limiting your choices much more, than laws do.
Why is this confined to only the people already working?
That is: if I have the opportunity & desire to work on something, you shouldn't interfere with it. But me having the desire to work on something shouldn't require you go provide the opportunity.
But whatever our beliefs, we already have sets of rules, legal and social, which limit people's choices in the job market. The ability to hire people is a privilege which comes with responsibilities, part of which is a responsibility to society. This is why developed countries have minimum wages.
Now as to what extent or whether at all, you can place limitations on employers without placing limitations on employees, now that is an argument worth exploring.
if people want to work 5 days a week, it's because 5 days is the norm, and noone gives much choice.
the norm used to be 6 days, then 5.5 days, and it was a big campaign in germany to get it down to 5.
btw the current norm is actually 35 hours for office work, 7 hours per day, or, if you do 8 hours per day 4.5 days. now they want to shave another 7 hours of that to 28.
all such a regulation does is to define what is the default. it does not dictate that i am only allowed to work those hours. i am still free to negotiate less hours if i want to. negotiating more is harder because of overtime rules but it's possible.
The article didn't provide details, but I'm imagining if workers are capped at four day workweeks, but businesses still operate five to seven days a week, then you can get more coverage without burnout.
Certainly there would be overhead of not just more people to train and coordination between people operating on different four day windows, but frankly, what is management being paid to do if not figure out problems such as this? Already you hear about sectors from medicine to law to investment banking where despite earning high salaries, workers are forced to endure ridiculously long hours and deal with high stress. Why not spread the workload?
Reminds me of job-sharing proposals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_sharing
Germany is a relatively low-wage country considering its productivity, but also its factories are highly automated. If these variables change, production will continue to move to cheaper European countries, just like US production moves to Mexico.
Tax the shit out of companies that pull these kind of stunts to skirt the law. Tariff their products at the border. If those countries are on the EU, Germany can use its clout to "force" these kind of rules on other countries. This soft power is real, as seen in Greece in 2013. If the Visegrad countries complain, kick Hungary out of the EU for their rule-of-law violations, it's only several years out of date.
Most of this could fit under the "COVID" umbrella.
Probably they took the average of all employments. Because many people have a part-time job the average is pushed down. This makes the numbers less useful.
I would bet the average is so low because of a large part of low paying part-time jobs, which are heavily subventioned / pay no or low social security & taxes, saved likely also the disincentivation of pmarried mothers working full time (not by law, but in effect).
Using part time to discriminate is more of a US phenomenon. Most older people and people with kids prefer 80% jobs which have correctly prorated salary, so 80% may average higher salary than 100% in these countries. Other jobs also. There are still some connections in pay like food service is open to students, part time, and lower paid.
from the article: In 2018, it won workers the right to reduce their working week from 35 hours to 28 for two years to increase flexibility, particularly for workers with caring responsibilities.
this is not talking about averages, but about full-time work hours.
> At 34.2 hours, Germany already has one of the shortest average working weeks in Europe. And there are loud voices calling for it to be shorter still.
And then the "graphic of usual hours of work of employees", and then goes on with 35h per week (in the metal working industry).
As others pointed out, 40h per week is quite often the standard, the lower average cited right in the beginning can be explained differently, than large parts of the population enjoying a relaxed safe full-time employment with less than 40h per week, which is kind of implied by the setup of the article.
ig-metall is the largest union representing about 2/5 of all unionized employees in germany. keep in mind that in most cases a union agreement is applied to all employees, not just the union members, so many more jobs than union members are affected.
that said, there is likely something wrong with that 34.5 average because i found other articles claiming an average of 37.5 and yet another of 41 hours.
while i still believe that the 35 hour week has a large impact on the result, it is less large than i thought.
Yes, but those union agreements are per industry and/or company, depending if there is an industry agreement or not. That's why the hours are listed per industry.
And they only apply to non-members, if the union has the mandate to negotiate on behalf of all workers, e.g. there is not another competing union with a sizable membership (not sure about the exact criteria).
I worked at SAP, and ig-metall is a union there (not the only one). Different industry, no industry-wide union agreements. Ergo 40h per week. This is also the default by law, if the exact hours are not defined.
Sort of like when you pay people a bit better than average for the industry, thereby fostering improved employee retention and lower turnover. It pays for itself over time and has additional benefits down the line.
This seems like a good idea to me. The 40 hour work week grew out of technology improving productivity such that some people were making good money and then there was higher unemployment to go with that. It was intended to share the wealth, primarily. Now we look back on normal working conditions prior to that and deem them to be inhumane.
That is likely already close to the sweet spot, at least for automotive workers.
https://butterflyeconomy.blogspot.com/2020/08/shorter-work-w...
Some people really, really like having a regular three-day weekend and will do just fine getting in their hours in four days. Others may well prefer a five day week with fewer hours per day.
If we could cut hours and give people choices as to how to allocate them, more people might get on board with the idea.
Every german car maker has an electric car shipping.
They know the market better than you.
I bet, you won't see much part-time work in many fields and professions.
My colleague had a baby. He would like to spend more time with the baby. He asked to reduce his hours. The boss said yes because its the law and we no longer live in the middle ages.
Lots of people I know do 4 days a week - there isn’t much social pressure to work 5.
Which kind of implies a social pressure.
Would you claim that it is the same outside of line of work?
From what I understand, people who enjoy a large degree of freedom already, they can get those things relatively easy. Parental leave, working from home, part-time, all part of the privilege that comes with the job.
But that is a limited subset of society.
Middle-management or upper-management in IT? Outside of IT?
At least from what I hear from Germany, not working _overtime_ for middle- or upper-management, as a medical doctor at a university hospital, many research positions is considered "lack of commitment". Almost irregardless of what you deliver. Probably you won't get fired, but you have to be exceptionally good so it doesn't reflect badly on you.
It was a good idea until there.
Why not just get the money off the money tree and pay the unemployed an unemployment wage.
Now the productivity gains actually did happen, however what the economists didn't predict is that all the gains went to only benefit very few (essentially the holders of capital) and inequality would increase significantly preventing most people to reduce their work hours even if they wanted.
Keynes rejected Marx, who explains that while the capitalist class maintains state power the workers will continue to be exploited.
He also rejected Lenin, who explains how imperialism’s constant expansion most intensely exploits the periphery, where most production gets moved to.
I'm curious if you would adjust your own standard of living accordingly, you could finance it with a 15h workweek just fine. But this for sure does not apply to low wage jobs.
While inequality is now clearly on the rise (and it's a big problem), afaik there also have been times in history when it was consistently higher. https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality seems to have some good charts and context here.