Four day week

Gracesgran absolutely agree.

Really good to post Eloethan.

Our productivity is not down because people haven't been working hard enough. It is down because of under investment both by the government and the private sector.

This government, over a decade, has lagged behind most other countries. We must now have investment, but it must be investment for our future. That way there will be no reason why we should not be paid more for less of our time. I really do think some on here enjoy the hair shirt of sticking to the past. Perhaps we should pass them a bowl of gruel while the rest of the world moves forward to future prosperity. Is time we acknowledge that an unfettered, privately run economy has not served us well although it has served a few of the already very wealthy extremely well.

What type of operation is Perpetual Guardian? It sounds like an insurance company.

Someone in my family worked four nights per week, then time off followed by five days etc on a rolling shift.
The nights were 13.5 hours which took their toll and it was impossible to pursue any hobbies.

Well done, Eloethan

I worked 30 hours a week in-an admin role for ten years in a government funded post. When I resigned they decided to advertise it on the same terms & conditions on a 37 hour week with no extra duties. This was done to appeal to a younger applicant who would never have applied for a part time post so now my replacement does my job for more money with less work!

At the start of the industrial revolution factory owners wanted to maximise their profits by keeping machines running for as many hours as possible. It was common for working hours to be between 14-16 a day, 6 days a week. Even children worked long hours in the textile factories, mines and as domestics in wealthy people's homes.

Following various campaigns, eventually in the textile industry 10-13 year olds were limited to 48 hours a week and 14-18 year olds to 69 hours.

In the 1930s The Factories Act was established, laying down no more than 9 hours in one day for women and young people - limited to 48 per week. Adult men's working hours remained unregulated.

Now, in the EU
there are directives to limit hours worked, although I believe although most countries do follow most of the directives, they are not obliged to do so. (I believe there are exemptions for certain occupations).

maximum 48 hours per week
One rest day a week
4 weeks' holiday

It would therefore appear that not much has changed in the way of limitations on working hours for many years,save for a compulsory holiday allowance.

When each campaign to reduce hours was mounted there was an insistence, often from factory owners and the like, including MPs who represented their interests, that it would be ruinous to businesses and a block on progress to consider shorter hours.

The same rhetoric is used today. And yet there is much evidence to demonstrate that productivity can actually improve when less hours are worked.

Business Insider (July 2018)
"Studies show that Americans work longer hours than many people in Europe and Japan, with many US employees spending 50 hours at work each week.

"Though the average number of hours spent at work each week is not going down significantly in the United States, some American companies and local governments are joining other parts of the world in testing whether a reduction in the number of weekly work hours can boost employee productivity.

"There is research to support these policy changes. Psychologist Anders Ericsson, who specializes in the science of peak performance, suggests that people can only concentrate on their work for four to five hours in one sitting. And a 2016 survey of nearly 2,000 office workers in the United Kingdom claims that the average employee works for roughly three hours during an eight-hour day.

"Most recently, a New Zealand company's (Perpetual Guardian) staff worked for 32 hours a week during March and April. The 240 employees were still paid for five days of work, and the company wants to make the policy change permanent, The New York Times reported. .......

............"Perpetual Guardian supervisors saw improvements in employee attendance and creativity during the experiment.

"Company founder Andrew Barnes told The Times that a permanent policy change would benefit mothers the most, allowing them to complete a full-time amount of work in fewer hours. The policy could also lead to lower electricity bills and fewer cars on the road during rush hour, Barnes said.

............"Retirement-home workers in Sweden reported greater happiness during a trial of a 30-hour work week — but the city's budget took a significant hit.

"In Sweden, a government study selected a group of retirement-home workers to work 30 hours a week while receiving pay for 40 hours. (Most elder-care in the country is funded by municipal taxes and government grants.)......

........"Participating employees enjoyed their work more during this time, but the change was expensive: City officials needed to hire more than a dozen people to cover the shifts left vacated by the roughly 70 workers who got more time off.

"The payroll grew about 22% during the study. A local politician told The New York Times that lower unemployment costs offset this hike by roughly 10%, but the overall cost nevertheless increased.

"According to The Washington Post, the study also concluded that nurses working six hours a day were more active, less sick, and had less neck and back pain than nurses working eight-hour days."

In the Swedish care worker case, although workers were happier and more effective in work, there was a significant cost to reducing hours. However, Sweden already has good working conditions and social support - nursery care being only a fraction of the cost of nursery care in the UK. That in itself means there is far less financial pressure on Swedish families and a less stressful home environment, so it might be suggested that they have either to be prepared to pay even more tax or to not fund, or not fully fund, the reduction in working hours. My belief is that if the majority of workers' salaries were reduced, prices would anyway automatically fall to match that reduction. (In the same way that prices of land, homes, goods and services are cheaper in areas of low pay than in areas with a wealthy demographic).

It appears that many of the initiatives to reduce hours have been successful in increasing productivity and morale. Apart from commercial considerations, many families contain two earners, and there is a significant social impact of both parents working quite long hours. In the UK, expensive and not particularly good, childcare facilities place much financial, practical and emotional pressure on relationships and the family unit. Perhaps, in the long run, issues arising from these stresses, eg lack of time and energy to: spend with children and partner; prepare nutritious food, etc, etc, would be fewer. This would result in improvements to physical and mental health, educational attainment, anti-social behaviour, family cohesion, etc, etc, all of which cost significant amounts of money.

It’s a non issue really, each organization will handle hours differently, some will pay overtime, some will have a rolling week. Reduction in hours has been happening for decades, because housing is so expensive many have 2 or even 3 different jobs, there is plenty of part time shift work for those that want it and a range of benefits for those that don’t or can’t.
The days of a job for life for one employer has long gone, a great many companies rely on part time or agency staff to cover business needs.

Ilovecheese Isn't one of the advantages that can occur from shorter working hours greater productivity though, so that yes, the same amount of work can be achieved in a shorter time? Technological advances should help increase output, but this should be used to improve the lives of working people.

Well, wouldn't that be lovely? Utopia, for sure. Unfortunately my relative had a nervous breakdown trying to cram a full working week into just 4 days in order to keep his job.

I don't think you can generalise Ilovecheese

I do not think anyone has said 'it won't work' on an employee basis, or even an employer basis where the hourly rate of pay remains the same and employees are paid for the reduced hours they work.

But Labour policy is for them to receive the same total pay when their hours drop by 20% and no-one has shown how companies can keep profitable, sell in competitive international markets or even stay solvent and not go bust if their labour costs are suddenly increased by 20% plus the cost of employing, at the increased hourly rate, new employees,which will push their labour costs up further.

Most people do not work for highly profitable international companies. They work for small and medium sized companies, like the local central heating contractors currently overhauling our central heating system, a small company with high labour costs because all their employees are skilled gas and plumbing technicians. if the cost of having our work done, went up by 30% the chances are we would have decided to struggle on as we were as the cost of the changes would be too expensive.

Then there is the retail sector already struggling with high rents and falling sales. How would they cope if their labour costs went up 20%

It is not that I am saying it won't work, rather I am asking the question 'How will it work' what effect will it have on businesses? How can they be helped to deal with the inevitable problems.

Both Labour and Conservatives keep throwing out these headline policies but neither of them explain the problems that come with them and how they will deal with them.

No-one would buy a car without seeing it or without giving it a test drive and having someone mechanical give it a good once over. Why should we immediately accept that any policy thrown out by a political party will work if they do not show us how it would be implemented and how the dilocations it will cause will be dealt with.

As I said I wouldn't buy a car unseen, why should I buy a political party's policy sight unseen?

I really don't know.
I do know that working flexible hours, as discussed above, works quite well but that means being flexible enough to stay late to complete work if necessary.

Callistamon I am sorry if I included you in the doomsayers, I apologise. I know what you mean about security of employment, but wouldn't a better work life balance be achieved by working four days instead of five.

Sparklefizz Isn't one of the advantages that can occur from shorter working hours greater productivity though, so that yes, the same amount of work can be achieved in a shorter time? Technological advances should help increase output, but this should be used to improve the lives of working people.

Why would you say that ilovecheese?
Most people are thinking of the pros and cons of it.

There are many ways in which people's working lives can be improved and I can think of some who would love to have the kind of job where they know they will be employed for five days a week and the security that goes with it.

Ilovecheese I said it wouldn't work, but that's because I'm a very practical person, nothing to do with I "just don't want it to work". You're assuming a lot and jumping to inaccurate conclusions.

Obviously I would like to make everybody's lives a bit easier but I know from the experiences of members of my family that the employee ends up working fewer hours but is expected to achieve the same amount of work as a 5-day week.

When this idea or any similar idea comes up on Gransnet, the responses seem to divide between people that think it is a good thing to help make the lives of working people a little bit easier, and those that think this will be a bad thing in principle.

Examples of good outcomes from a four day working week can be given, employee loyalty, increased productivity etc. but those who are opposed to any improvement in peoples working lives will still shout "It won't work" because they just don't want it to work. They will find any excuse to put forward obstructions new ideas in order to protect the status quo.

I think both parties plans will do nothing but bankrupt the country and make the poor poorer and the rich richer.

When people talk about taxation, I think most people think about income tax and other direct taxes. In fact, income tax only accounts for about 25% of the government's income. It's almost impossible to live in the UK without spending money which is taxed somewhere or other.

Ideally, money should circulate around everybody, so that everybody has a chance to get their hands on some of it and enough of it for long enough to exchange it for whatever they need. The government can control what share of it certain groups of people get and what they do with it. A communist government will attempt to have total control, but there isn't a single genuinely communist government in the world. Most economies are mixed, to varying degrees.

The real difference between Labour and Conservative spending plans (neither of which is entirely what it seems) is that Labour would attempt to redirect wealth to the least well off (not necessarily the poorest), whereas Conservative plans would consolidate the position of the wealthiest and, almost certainly, make them even wealthier. Neither plan would actually "cost" the public as much as it seems in the way a supermarket bill costs a household.

Not being an economist I think they are just about the right level growstuff and simple has to be truefully; there is no room for obfuscation.

I love the way that debates about economics always seem to come down to suggesting that a very mature, stable democracy with a reasonably stable monetary system using its own sovereign currency is inevitably going to end up like a country with a highly unstable and relatively new 'democracy', riddled with corruption, highly dependent on petro-dollars and subject to US sanctions because the US doesn't like the current regime... if it issues a few £billions more to invest in the country (not line the pockets of the wealthy) with a return through the tax take and increased productivity...

Maizies last sentence is 100% correct - provided it doesn't leak out into offshore accounts and/or imports.

PS. I know my explanations are simplistic, but I don't feel inclined to write an essay. Sorry!

No, they wouldn't buy Venezuelan bonds. However, at the moment, people are still keen to buy UK bonds because they're seen as a safe investment. Japan's national debt is greater than its GDP, but people still buy government bonds at almost 0% interest because they're seen as a safe place to store money.

That is a ridiculously simplistic 'explanation', Monica. @10.54

It assumes finite resources available to buy. Which is highly unrealistic. While ever there are resources available to purchase there will not be inflation.

And I don't think that anyone can deny that there is plenty that needs doing in the UK to absorb extra money issued. We're looking at all sorts of areas, health, education, infrastructure, Green issues, such as improving insulation and investing in alternative energy sources, etc as the electioneering progresses.

Roosevelt's 'New Deal' was highly successful, did the same sort of thing as what is proposed now, and was a 'money printing' exercise... way back in the 1930s...

The UK government has issued some £2.4 billion in QE since 2008. It 'owes' a significant part of that to itself....

Once again, I repeat, state spending circulates in the economy, boosts spending and demand for goods, and most of it comes back to the government through taxation.

MOnica I agree on the whole, although I think QE didn't have the backing of bonds. It literally was printed money.