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Counterpoint: When hiring people reasonably early out of school, they often just want the additional hours. I know of a business in my area that tried the 4 day work week and they ended up having to open on Fridays for half a day because people just wanted more hours (and money). Without it, the same people were just getting second jobs.
but I'll take a 4 day workweek (I assume 8 hours a day)
Counterpoint: When hiring people reasonably early out of school, they often just want the additional hours. I know of a business in my area that tried the 4 day work week and they ended up having to open on Fridays for half a day because people just wanted more hours (and money). Without it, the same people were just getting second jobs.
I can't wait for companies to use this as a way to drive down pay
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of a 4-day work week isn't to cram the 5th day into 4 days, it's completely removing the 5th day, thus working 8 hours every day for 4 days, as opposed to 10 hours for 5 days.
Question: If they removed the 5th work day and the same amount of work got done, then management can say that basically the employees were slacking off for a day a week. And if so, what's stopping them next to increase it back to 5 and chase 5 days worth of productivity out of 5 days/week instead of the previous 4 using the same efficiency gains as performance benchmarks of the 4 days/week?
It reminds me of the way that as we improve in our ability to automate laws, we're going to need to do a better job of thinking about what laws are for rather than assuming that simply reifying the current laws exactly into computerized enforcement will do what we expect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17094010
Just because a butt is in a seat does not mean a butt is doing work. It wasn't true before, it isn't true now, and it won't be true if they try to squeeze another day out at the new efficiency levels. It may be a common delusion but there is no magic path to that level of productivity.
I can't wait for companies to use this as a way to drive down pay
It's inevitable really.
I can't wait for companies to use this as a way to drive down pay
Why not though. If you are getting $x for 5 days, why should you not get $x * 0.8 for 4 days ?
I personally first tried 4-day workweek about 10 years ago and still love it. That was one of the best decisions I made in my life. Especially in software industry, it's not that hard to arrange I believe. Even easier if we do it collectively. And when more and more people do it and it becomes a norm, the income will just readjust and return to the current levels. But even today, when it's still not a norm, and I hav…
This is something that will never happen in India because no matter how bad you want 4 day work week theres always someone who will do full 5 days a week and do additional work over the weekend.
Every industry is different. Having the same 5-day, 4-day, x-day or x-hour workweek across all industries doesn't make any sense. More diversity in this area could bring a worldwide increase of productivity, wellbeing and result in an economic boost.