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Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

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Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#21

Post by mcv »

ernst_klim wrote: post #16
mcv wrote: post #6

The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.

> Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week. > but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between…

It's probably a combination. Of course our standard of living has gone up, but so has wealth inequality.

And in a way, we're actually working more. Back in the 70s, a single income was enough to maintain a family with a house and kids and everything. These days, it's common for both parents to work, and yet we're not all twice as rich. Most of that extra money is eaten up by higher housing costs, which often depend on what people can afford to pay for the house they need, and with double income, we can afford to pay twice as much, so housing prices have gone through the roof.

I suspect we shouldn't have gone from one parent working fulltime to two parents working fulltime, but to two parents working part time. I've got a feeling we may have accidentally ruined this for ourselves.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#22

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ernst_klim wrote: post #16
mcv wrote: post #6

The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.

> Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week. > but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between…

>If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week.

Not if you want a home.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#24

Post by sureglymop »

jsz0 wrote: post #3

If this becomes a common thing in the US I'd be worried about stoking the flames of class warfare between white collar and blue collar workers. Many of those blue collar jobs (public facing especially) cannot be compressed into a 4 day work week. Lots of blue collar workers are already furious about things like working from home, 'email jobs', flexible schedules, etc. On top of that many white collar workers already…

In reality though, this is only because they have a false sense of class association. Both blue collar and white collar workers are part of the working class. This would actually benefit blue collar workers because of that. But there are always attempts to blur the lines with expressions like "laptop class" etc.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#25

Post by ernst_klim »

pjc50 wrote: post #18
ernst_klim wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week. > but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between…

How's the fraction of income devoted to housing in that calculation? A lot of people would love to go back to 1940s house prices, but of course you simply can't do that.

> A lot of people would love to go back to 1940s house prices

In USA? Adjusted for inflation, you had pretty flat housing prices until mid 90s, where the housing bubble started. And even now and on peak of the housing bubble of 2008 the house will cost you 250% the cost of 1940s house (or 180% of the 1950s which is more fair comparison since it was after the war) which is not that bad.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#26

Post by Clubber »

jsz0 wrote: post #3

If this becomes a common thing in the US I'd be worried about stoking the flames of class warfare between white collar and blue collar workers. Many of those blue collar jobs (public facing especially) cannot be compressed into a 4 day work week. Lots of blue collar workers are already furious about things like working from home, 'email jobs', flexible schedules, etc. On top of that many white collar workers already…

>Many of those blue collar jobs (public facing especially) cannot be compressed into a 4 day work week.

Sure it can, it's just a matter of scheduling.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#27

Post by rcbdev »

I feel like the discourse on worker rights / work-life balance and demographic issues are more decoupled than they should be. Low birth-rates are provably related to the ability of parents to spend time with their children.

This combined with other initiatives might help Europe recover from the serious imminent demographic collapse.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#28

Post by ernst_klim »

mcv wrote: post #21
ernst_klim wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week. > but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between…

It's probably a combination. Of course our standard of living has gone up, but so has wealth inequality. And in a way, we're actually working more. Back in the 70s, a single income was enough to maintain a family with a house and kids and everything. These days, it's common for both parents to work, and yet we're not all twice as rich. Most of that extra money is eaten up by higher housing costs, which often depend o…

> These days, it's common for both parents to work, and yet we're not all twice as rich. Most of that extra money is eaten up by higher housing costs

What was the average home size in 1970? What is the average home size today? Internet says that median house size in US went from 500sq feet to 907 sq feet. So yes, the consumption standards had risen significantly.

> These days, it's common for both parents to work

Can't say for US, but in EU these days it's common for parents to travel. It's common for parents to go on a massage or SPA on the weekends. It's common for parents to do sport, buy a bicycle etc. And I'm talking about regular blue collar peps.

My parents didn't do all that. They lived a much more humble life than most parents today. Also my mother did a shitload of manual work, she washed all the clothes manually, she did cleaning mostly manually, she fixed clothes with her own hands manually. How many times in the past ten years had you fixed your clothes with sewing?

So this "one parent was working" meant basically "another parent is doing a shitload of manual labor at home (because absent/more expensive goods and services) and they overall live a pretty humble life by today standards even adjusted for better services".

If you reduce your living standards to 1970s median, you can easily rise your kids with a single working parent. But neither you, nor your spouse and kids will like that standards of living.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#29

Post by thiago_fm »

Terribly written article and headline.

Germany isn't 45 German companies that will try it.

There's no labor shortage in Germany, what there is, are proper salaries.

One example are childcare workers in Kindergartens (Kita). Salaries are low and regulated, so nobody wants to do it. Increase the salary and you will have many workers lining up.

Germany has managed to grow for decades, from absolute destruction post WW2 without raises that accompany that amount of growth.

Tech workers in Germany are paid peanuts in comparison to Americans.

The situation isn't worse because some American companies offer good salaries, pushing the market up.

Re: Germany tests 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#30

Post by rascul »

whstl wrote: post #12
jzd131 wrote: post #8

I find it interesting when employees ask for this without reducing pay. They then think it’s a 20% reduction as it’s 20% less work. But then you factor the overhead including normal overhead like benefits, HR, office space and additional overhead like management (a manager can only many so many people so now we need two managers for a group) and your at around a 40% reduction in pay to support one less day of output.

A few things: - The employer pays salaries based on negotiation, not on merit or some scientific measurement. An employee is allowed to do the same. - Unless the employee is privy to all the details and math pertaining this overhead and is the one who asked for this overhead, then it's appropriate that the employee doesn't care about the overhead at all. - There is also overhead in the employees side that is not take…

> - A 20% reduction of work time never amounts to a 20% reduction of productivity or work output, unless the work consists solely of sitting in a chair (and that's not counting bathroom breaks).

I don't understand what you're saying here. If I work 20% less then that's 20% less work that I get done. I don't sit in a chair for work.

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