Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Greece introduces the six day work week

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 162 posts

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#21

Post by PartiallyTyped »

lr4444lr wrote: post #10
krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

Something you should consider is that plenty of people are simply not registered and take money under the table because it is beneficial to them.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#22

Post by SeanAnderson »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #14
lr4444lr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

One wonders if increasing the compensation offered for these jobs might result in less vacancies. I mean, I've heard theories (only theories, mind you) that this could have some effect. Seems unlikely, but maybe worth a try?

I don't know a lot about Greek economy. It seems like it could be a scenario where consumers can't afford higher prices. If prices goes up then consumers bail, companies go out of business, unemployment goes down but total available jobs goes down, too. Instead, everyone's grinding their way to the bottom which isn't great, either.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#23

Post by EncomLab »

AGI and General Purpose robots are both so far off in the future they should be considered science fiction at this point. The "Woz Standard" - a robot is dropped in front of a random house and proceeds without any assistance to brew a cup of coffee - is hard to imagine being met before 2040, if not even later.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#24

Post by squidbeak »

krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

Automation's in its infancy. What makes you assume you can draw any conclusions about its effects in its maturity from the current economic situation in Greece?

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#25

Post by timonoko »

Fascinating thing about america 50 years ago was it seemed to work 24/7. In Finlandia it was illegal to work after 16:00. Then we got a nazi government who decided that small shops and kiosks can extend their hours upto 18:00.

Worst thing was that there was no bank services outside 8:00-16:00. This was a blessing sort of, because Finland was the only country you could get bank services with a modem in 1970's. In 1983 you could do exactly all banking with your own Teletype. This included realtime stock exchange and that modern scheiße.

    At least HN's downvoting team works 24/7.  
    Excellent.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#26

Post by erikaww »

kjksf wrote: post #20

I'm confused because economically it doesn't add up. Shortages of labor should lead to higher wages. Supply and demand. So it would make sense to relax laws prohibiting working more than 40hrs in order to unleash additional economic output i.e. increase the amount of money made. The article claims that for some reason that defies logic, it will just make employers demand more work for same amount of money. I see two…

You must have never worked a fast food job. Companies will do anything but raise wages, even if it allows them to have way more revenue and higher reliability.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#27

Post by squidbeak »

EncomLab wrote: post #23

AGI and General Purpose robots are both so far off in the future they should be considered science fiction at this point. The "Woz Standard" - a robot is dropped in front of a random house and proceeds without any assistance to brew a cup of coffee - is hard to imagine being met before 2040, if not even later.

AGI and Robotics are separate things, and Robotics still being far off doesn't mean AGI is also.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#28

Post by echoangle »

klysm wrote: post #9
krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

No amount of automation has ever seemed to result in a net reduction in work to do thus far

Why would it? It’s not like the amount of work to do is fixed and once it’s done, everyone can relax for the rest of the year. There’s always work to do and progress just speeds up as work becomes more efficient.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#29

Post by litoE »

giantg2 wrote: post #2

6 days used to be normal generations ago, and still is in many parts of the world. Perhaps we're just in a golden age that's about to end.

In Chile in the 1950s they had a 48-hour work (and school) week: Monday through Saturday. However, it was common for people to just not show up for work on Mondays, jocularly referred to as "celebrating Saint Monday's Day", even though they forfeited one day's pay. In 1959 the government implemented a new program: if you worked the full 6 days you were paid for 7 days. If you worked less than 6 days, you were only paid for the days you actually worked; that meant that taking Monday off now cost you two days pay. The "Saint Monday's Day" practice quickly died away.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#30

Post by [deleted] »

timonoko wrote: post #25

Fascinating thing about america 50 years ago was it seemed to work 24/7. In Finlandia it was illegal to work after 16:00. Then we got a nazi government who decided that small shops and kiosks can extend their hours upto 18:00. Worst thing was that there was no bank services outside 8:00-16:00. This was a blessing sort of, because Finland was the only country you could get bank services with a modem in 1970's. In 1983…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN