I suspect a lot of the statistics on lower hours per week don’t come from actually having fewer hours in a workweek but rather having fewer hours over the year. My daughter works in Germany and they have tons of vacation as compared to us, plus women have an immense amount of maternity leave, which some actually take. The culture also seems to be 8 hour days unlike hours for salaried people. When I went to one of our factories in the Netherlands I was struck by the fact that not only did the workers leave at 5, like in our factories in the US, but that the engineers also left at 5, unlike in the US.
Difference in Corporate Culture perhaps - my last company was doing it with about 20% of the telephone CS people, and about 25% of everybody else and it was going quite well, it only hit bobbles when they were phasing in a new proprietary software and they were training people, so people needed to actually be in the office and they didn’t pull as many people in early for training as they really should have. Once everybody was trained it went back to normal.
My ideal dream would be third shift at home doing something boring like plain data entry. I have found that with the US security paranoia and the unwillingness to spend actual money on auto opening doors for wheelchair people makes ‘accessibility’ more or less a joke around here.
Suppose it took a day’s worth of work to produce the computer you are now using.
Now it will take approximately two days of work.
Sounds to me that it will cost more.
Do I mean to say that the circuit board(s) inside your laptop aren’t put together by a robot? I, do mean that. But if some day the millions of Chinese electronics workers are replaced by robots, 20 hours a week means that it takes approximately twice as many workdays to design, manufacture, configure, and repair the robots. So, again, it will cost more.
P.S. Why do I say approximately twice in this post? Because I can do a little more than twice as much work in 40 hours than in 20. That’s because I have a job that requires lifelong learning. The amount of time I spend keeping up with advances in my field can’t be reduced just because of now working 20 hours a week. So the reduction in the time I spend actually producing would be more than half.
It is quite sensible for many many two income households to turn into one and a half income households. But you both couldn’t do it right now.
You cannot have a lifestyle that is greater than the value you produce (or at least take credit for). Sure, we could ease ourselves to a 35 hour work week over a few years and then to 30 over a few more years. I doubt we could ever get to 20 hours but who knows. BUT, we would need to have enough growth in productivity to afford a good lifestyle on what you earn in 20 hours a week… or you better have some skills that can help you produce enough value in 20 hours to afford that lifestyle.
There are also a lot of jobs that have time “overhead” so the first few hours of your day are spent just getting ready for your day. A lot of professional jobs where 20 hours a week just won’t work.
That universal health care isn’t free, not even in Canada, someone has to pay for it.
South Korea moved to a 40 hour work week in part to address unemployment concerns.
You left out unemployment, which is again the whole point.
In your island there are only only ever one fish, one banana and one coconut per person.
But in the real world, if more people are working they can produce more fish, more bananas and more coconuts. If finding a chest of gold is what’s necessary to produce full employment, the chest of gold would result in more food for everyone.
Inflation is not a function of money, it’s a function of money in relation to the supply of goods and services in the marketplace. If more people working results in more goods and services, then people can consume more, without inflation.
There are over 11 million people out of work in the US right now. Those people could be producing a lot of bananas and coconuts, if they were working, instead of doing nothing.
You are probably right, but consider that the price of buying a computer has been dropping precipitously for quite some time now.
If everyone’s workweek could be cut in half at the price of a minor delay in the rate of improvement in computers, it would be a tempting deal.
(Of course there are other industries besides computers where a reduction in the workweek would have different effects.)
There are too many unemployed and technological advances and automation are just going to make that worse. We have to address that somehow. I know I asked for a lot, but that’s how you barter. 20 is too little, but it doesn’t have to stay 40 just because we’re afraid to change.
I just successfully argued with my boss for a 28 hour work week with no decrease in my salary. My situation is a little unique, but we both made some sacrifices to come to this agreement. He was already getting me pretty cheap and he knew it, so that helped, but I used that extra time off to spend time with my family and we went shopping and out for breakfast.
My life is improved, I’m out participating in society and stimulating the economy by shopping and dining out. I think I’ll go to a movie next week. For me personally, my quality of life just took a huge jump up. I know there’s no one size fits all answer, but we need to start somewhere.
Either you are a great negotiator, you were underpaid before, or your boss is crazy. Underpaid before is the most likely explanation. What you did was great for you, but one size does not fit all. My guess is that you are the exception and not the rule. I do see part time work being more common for women in the future. However, a mandate to make everyone make the same choices you made would not be life improving for people who have different priorities. Revealed preference shows that most people don’t have the same priorities, have a great life but lets not try to force your choices on other people.
I agree, I was just trying to make the point that in order to make peoples lives better enhancing productivity is the only way to do it. Productivity is hours worked times per value produced per hour. There are some who seem to think that if you divide the number of hours between more people then you suddenly get more productivity. This is not the case. To put it mathematically if x is the amount of value per hour then 20x + 20x can never equal more than 40x +0x. For simplicity’s sake I have ignored variations in x over time.
So in order to add value the unemployed need new jobs not half of someone else’s job.
What if we looked at consumption over a longer period of time such as a lifetime or at least a generation. Suppose things were simply made to last longer but cost more and take longer to produce. In todays world technology becomes obsolete so quickly it would be impossible but possibly the day will come where 10 year old technology is still pretty good.
Humans seem to like to work harder so we can buy more things that we have less time to enjoy. With more time on our hands possibly a more creative and inventive culture could arise that would spur cottage industries of its own. Our present culture is leaning toward less and less personnal identity that used to be derived form our proffessions. Creative pursuits of all kinds be it business, arts, research what have you may be the source of identitiy that so many of us strive for, more leisure time would help to promote this.That could have some nasty unintended consequences. How much of computer sales is driven by new technology? PC sales are tanking, for instance, driven in part by the fact that Win8 isn’t very popular. (And by tablet sales also, of course - new technology.) Car sales used to be driven by fashion and obsolescence. If everyone kept cars 5 years instead of 10 there would be a lot more employment in Detroit.
We who do computer design are not going to be working 20 hour weeks any time soon. Keeping it down to 40 hours is hard enough.
Sure, just like any other change to labor or economic policy. Which is why I would support a modest beefing up of the Fair Labor Standards Act, e.g. reduce the standard work week to 35 hours; raise the minimum salary to be exempt to $700 per week or so; narrow the job categories which are exempt.
If the sky doesn’t fall the law can be souped up further.
Tempting for whom? Unless you are ready to enforce this world-wide, whichever country adopts it is going to rapidly fall behind the technology curve. I can’t imagine that being a desirable outcome.
Let me stir the pot by linking to this article from London anthropologist David Graeber - “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” In summary, he first notes how the past century has transformed the global workforce:
His ultimate point is, we could have a 15-hour work-week, but instead a whole raft of “bullshit jobs” have sprung up to fill out a workforce and support a general 40-hour work week. He goes on to say this is exactly the opposite of what capitalist economics says should happen, so he concludes the reason is political and/or moral.
That may be so, but it’s a different issue. I do agree that international competitiveness is a factor which should be considered in developing domestic labor policy. But of course it’s not the be-all end-all. One can imagine that the US would be more competitive if there were a repeal of the overtime laws; minimum wage laws; anti-discrimination laws; Family and Medical Leave Act; National Labor Relations Act; and so on.
I can. There do exist countries which are behind in the technology curve but have decent quality of life.
“Bullshit jobs” like blogging and anthropology?
That we continue to have a 40 hour work week and, recent economic recession aside, a relatively constant unemployment rate for the past 300 years is exactly what we expect to happen in a capitalist economy. In a capitalist economy, technology frees up resources to work on other tasks besides “non-bullshit” jobs like farming or building stuff with your hands. It allows more people to pursue “bullshit” jobs like being a lawyer, graphic designer or opening a cupcake shop.
Not an area I know a lot about, but I feel I should point out that over the last half century or so, the number of paid-work hours per poulation must have increased dramatically.
As more and more women have entered the labour force, rather than get married and become stay-at-homes, the number of employed citizens must have soared. This has happened alongside the drop in automatable jobs.
It seems to me that the OP describes a 50s-style social setup, except with the househols adults sharing the working hours between them.
I doubt it. The only way to compete with the Third World on labour is to be Third World.
It appears to my unprofessional eyes that the US and UK for some time has been trying to increase competitiveness by lowering labour costs, vacation time, loosening overtime regulation etc.
And during this, has been left in the dust by nations going the other way, such as Germany, Japan, Scandinavia etc. That maop, for some reason, does not appear to fit the terrain.
I’m not sure I understand your point. What exactly would the United States need to do in order to “be Third World”?
With respect to the United States, what specific policy changes are you thinking of?
By what measure has the United States been “left in the dust” in your view?
To effectivly compete with the Third World on labour costs, it would be neccessary to lower wages and benefits so much for such a large section of the popuation that the country would effectivly join the Third World.
Tendencies, more than policy changes. The US is less unionized, has less vacation days, less mandated maternity leave, it is easier to fire employees, and employyes are encouraged to work longer hours to impress the boss. There is a similar narrative going in on the UK, where many people assume that the economy will improve if legislation moves in the US direction. Jfr. any discussion in the UK about maternity leave, minimum wage etc.
“Left in the dust” may have been an exaggeration. However, the US ranking has consistently been slipping for many years in measures such as HDI, public health, budget surplus, etc. The median wage still compares well, but it the gap is shrinking. The average US worker, I’m told has had about a 10 % real wage increase since 1973 This slippage is in comparison to countries pursuing nearly the opposite policies on the above issues.
I know a fair amount about this stuff. From an economic standpoint, there isn’t some fixed amount of work that needs to be done. Doubling the work force doesn’t mean we can finish all that work in half the time. That’s the major misconception of people who promote a fixed work week, oppose immigration and automation or even think that women shouldn’t be in the work force. That we have those things is what allows someone like David Graeber to pursue a “bullshit job” like writing his anthropology blog.
Depends what you mean by “competitive”. I suspect it wouldn’t matter much for the same reason most jobs don’t, in fact, pay minimum wage. Because the market pays significantly higher. And generally I think most experts agree that a safe, happy work force is more productive.
Regulation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
This statement doesn’t really make sense as Germany, Japanand Scandinavian countries all have very different economies with different results.
The US typically can’t compete with countries like India or China or even Eastern Europe on labor costs. Where we do compete is in technological innovation, mostly centered around hubs in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Austin and North Carolina.
What is causing the US to fall behind IMHO is a sort of consumerist “anti-intellectualism” that is causing us to value superficial status and conspicuous consumption over education and innovation. Part of the cause of the 2008 financial crisis was the explosive growth of the financial industry. For years, many of our best and brightest passed up careers in engineering and science in order to pursue far more lucrative careers in investment banking, finance and trading (and sales for the less bright but affable). While there is a need for those services, an entire economy can’t be based on buying and selling stocks and flipping houses.