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Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

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Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#21

Post by defrost »

j7ake wrote: post #12

There are 80 percent jobs, but unlikely for highly sought after careers(note career != jobs) with nonlinear payoff functions. Think of the NBA, Olympic athletes, or movie stars. The performance difference between the top 10 people versus unemployed is probably much less than 20 percent. In the extreme case: a 100 m sprinter sprinting 12 seconds vs 10 seconds is the difference between gold vs unknown.

Meanwhile, for the other 330 million people in the USofA who are not Olympic athletes or NBA superstars . . .

It's nice that you address an unrepresentative teeny tiny micro sliver of the employed, but is there anything you can add for the majority?

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#22

Post by unwind »

Meta: has the friendly HN title sanitization system removed "80%" from the start of the title? I feel it makes little sense as it's worded now (just "Percent Jobs") so perhaps that warrants fixing. Thanks.

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#24

Post by lynx23 »

imiric wrote: post #10

It's borderline criminal that after decades of productivity increases due to automation and technology, people are still working 40-hour weeks or more, and their wages have been mostly stagnant[1,2,3]. Most of the benefits of this change is instead being reaped by already highly paid executives. Not only should people in most industries be working less, they should be paid more for it. Cutting my income by 20% for th…

I am totally fine with 40-hours a week. However, what I am not fine with is people like you speaking for everyone else. You can work less then 40 hours already, volutnarily. But you are not qualified to determine how long other people are supposed to work, or actually knowing how long they would want to work.

This "we need to work less" attitude comes from people that dont like they work. That is sad. But it doesn't apply to me, for instance.

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#25

Post by erur »

For any form of tech product work I'd rather work together with 10 very engaged people rather than 20 half-assers. Don't see why I'd wanna hire a part-time worker unless they're truly special and even then only for a consulting role.

Not saying 32h hours is half-assing but I'd be surprised if the avg candidate pool for <=32h was as productive per hour as the others.

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#26

Post by oldpersonintx »

rkachowski wrote: post #11
oldpersonintx wrote: post #7

The endgame for something like this is purely-dynamic percentages....i.e hourly pay. IMHO this is where many rank-and-file dev jobs are headed...you will be paid by the hour to close tickets, and when there are no tickets, there is no work, and no pay. Employers will sell this as a "benefit" like "unlimited PTO"...but it's really not Be careful about pursuing that four day work week...

This would require well defined tickets + work items with scope that is realistic, and an entire system behind the creation of these items which entails product + process understanding (not to mention designing tickets in a way which is minimally exploitable). If this could happen we would advance the state of project management into the sci-fi era.

The number of devs is well on its way to exceeding available work, so none of what you stipulate is necessary

Employers can simply say : "this ticket is three hours of work and that is all that we will pay", and your choice will be take it or leave it

We are well on our way to most tech jobs becoming "McJobs", this is one more step...HN really has its collective head buried in the sand in this regard imho

I already see this at my employer (well known HW maker)...more and more dev work falls to QA staff who are poorly compensated and have no mobility....QA has just become code for "low end dev" and they do nothing but pull from JIRA (advice: never take a QA job in tech if you desire good pay or mobility)

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#27

Post by isoprophlex »

corethree wrote: post #4
hunglee2 wrote: post #2

I believe the Netherlands stipulates the requirement to offer every job as either part or full time, and a substantial number of job applicants go for the part time option, especially women. Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles.

>Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles This isn't downstream impact. It's more of a choice. The women choose not to strive for senior level roles. They express this choice by choosing the 4 day work week. We shouldn't call it an unintended downstream impact because it's not something that should be corrected. I…

> If women choose not to work as hard as men, then we shouldn't try to equalize their participation in senior roles

This is a myopic, reductionist take. You're missing the forest for the trees. It is not a matter of women choosing not to work as hard as men, it is a matter of society being structured in such a way that men are disproportionately not involved in raising a family, and women being delegated to the task of caregiver even though they themselves would like more equality.

Economically, women are pressured to stay out of the workplace for 6+ months, whereas men get a couple of days-weeks to stay at home.

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

imiric wrote: post #10

It's borderline criminal that after decades of productivity increases due to automation and technology, people are still working 40-hour weeks or more, and their wages have been mostly stagnant[1,2,3]. Most of the benefits of this change is instead being reaped by already highly paid executives. Not only should people in most industries be working less, they should be paid more for it. Cutting my income by 20% for th…

[deleted]

Re: Why aren't there more 80% jobs?

#30

Post by abenga »

lynx23 wrote: post #24
imiric wrote: post #10

It's borderline criminal that after decades of productivity increases due to automation and technology, people are still working 40-hour weeks or more, and their wages have been mostly stagnant[1,2,3]. Most of the benefits of this change is instead being reaped by already highly paid executives. Not only should people in most industries be working less, they should be paid more for it. Cutting my income by 20% for th…

I am totally fine with 40-hours a week. However, what I am not fine with is people like you speaking for everyone else. You can work less then 40 hours already, volutnarily. But you are not qualified to determine how long other people are supposed to work, or actually knowing how long they would want to work. This "we need to work less" attitude comes from people that dont like they work. That is sad. But it doesn't…

The issue isn't the number of hours, it's the stagnant wages despite increased productivity.
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