Four day work week

Lightnix

Lightnix

Lightnix

Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2007
Posts
5,744
Location
from the internet
I think it's time that as a nation we start giving the idea of a four day work week more serious consideration. Politically, recently we're being shown that there is a hunger on the left for better rights for workers as shown by the left leaning Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn winning the party leadership contest by a huge majority.

The BBC have been talking about the impact technology has on our lives recently - my take on this has been for a long time that emerging technologies are being positioned in such a way that the demand for workers in many industries is simply going to start vanishing. Automation in customer facing roles is a relatively newly emerging trend, but one that has the potential to begin to take off very rapidly. "Lights out" factories and plants are a very serious goal in many industrial sectors with potentially massive rewards for those industries. Voice recognition based telephone services have been implemented at many companies supplanting some of the need for call centre workers and are starting to work surprisingly well.

The result of all of this is that we're going to be fighting a losing battle in keeping unemployment down as new technologies start pushing human provided services into a niche.
A four day work week provides the demand for up to 20% more hours to be filled.

But here's the major point: Most people don't want to work all the time. They have hobbies, they want to start businesses but don't have the time, they have children they can't see most of the time because they work.

A Yougov poll last year showed that at the time, 57% of the country supported a four day work week and 71% believe it would make people happier. It has also been claimed that a four day work week may make workers more productive during the time that they work and reduce stress related illness.
 
Last edited:
It is interesting to think what jobs people will be doing in the future and for all jobs replaced by automation what do the people left behind do?

Companies are already saying that with the living wage increase they will be investing in increasing productivity while reducing staff .
 
4 day week would be great, but who's going to pay for it. Us with reduced wages, already do overtime as it is.

Great concept but I don't see how it's workable, how many people would be willing to take a 20% drop in pay.

The argument that we will be jobless is scaremongering. This has happened so many times in history and jobs still exist, look at industrial revolution AMD the sheet number of man hours lost, yet still plenty of new jobs arose.

Also employment and h&s laws already significantly increases are labour costs to levels where we can't compete with the world except in high tech or financial markets. I've heard figures for UK employment law hitting the economy by 5k per person per year, this alone is significantly more than average wages in places like china.
 
Last edited:
Just work extra hours per day (2). I'd happily do that for a Friday/Monday off.
 
I work for a big bank and we can already do this. We still do our 35 hour week but over the course of 4 days if we choose to. It works as we have enough cover each day but obviously not every department would be able to function this way. Especially if you were client facing.

It's very handy though and most people choose to do these compressed hours. Certainly helps a little in the job satisfaction department.
 
You can be sure the Unions and the Left are flexing their muscles after Corbyn's victory when this subject comes up again What makes you think they're still going to pay you the same for a 4 day week? Strikes?
 
Last edited:
Jono said:
Just work extra hours per day (2). I'd happily do that for a Friday/Monday off.
Click to expand...

I wish I could do my hours in a 3 day week.
2x12hrs and an 11hr, would be great, knackering but 4 days off.
Trouble is it's not how a lot of business work, no point you being there, if you can't do anything.
 
We experimented with it awhile back as I've mentioned before - the results were surprisingly positive though not sure how it would have looked in the long term once the novelty wore off. The manager involved left and the replacement was dead against it so we went back to 5-6 day weeks.
 
you can do a 4 day week at the moment, there are also plenty of people out there with zero hours contracts - granted some of them have not much say at all but others can essentially chose to work only say 30 hours a week mostly...

Thing is plenty of people simply don't want to only work 4 days a week - people with no set shifts tend to want as many as they can get, they don't tend to want to turn down extra work unless they're students/mothers.
 
Glaucus said:
4 day week would be great, but who's going to pay for it. Us with reduced wages, already do overtime as it is.

Great concept but I don't see how it's workable, how many people would be willing to take a 20% drop in pay.

The argument that we will be jobless is scaremongering. This has happened so many times in history and jobs still exist, look at industrial revolution AMD the sheet number of man hours lost, yet still plenty of new jobs arose.

Also employment and h&s laws already significantly increases are labour costs to levels where we can't compete with the world except in high tech or financial markets. I've heard figures for UK employment law hitting the economy by 5k per person per year, this alone is significantly more than average wages in places like china.
Click to expand...

I don't think it necessarily has to entail a 20% drop in pay. Others have mentioned hours could change - honestly I think it's one of these things where because many businesses are growing to such absurd sizes, they should foot the bill. Individuals shouldn't have to give up such a large amount of their time to fuel that growth.

It's probably worth mentioning that around the time of the industrial revolution was when the five day, forty hour work week was introduced.

Plus I mean, who would want to live in China? Mmm, smog in the morning and a massive poverty gap. Sounds good to me. To be less sarcastic about it, it's getting to the point where Chinese workers are getting too expensive and remember their economy is currently looking about as stable and secure as IE5.


Sharlaw said:
Yes because what this economy needs is less productivity.
Click to expand...

Bums on seats is not the same thing as productivity.
 
Depends on the job, my girlfriend already does this is a midwife. 3x 12 hour shifts per week with one extra shift every 3 weeks to raise the weekly average to 40 hours.
 
Lightnix said:
I don't think it necessarily has to entail a 20% drop in pay. Others have mentioned hours could change - honestly I think it's one of these things where because many businesses are growing to such absurd sizes, they should foot the bill. Individuals shouldn't have to give up such a large amount of their time to fuel that growth.
rl].
Click to expand...

Not in OPs example off providing more jobs for people. Hours would have to drop to employ more people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom