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Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

cnn.com

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Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#31

Post by cableshaft »

MBCook wrote: post #3

I wish these stories would say if the hours are changing or not. 32 hours, 4 days a week seems better to me. But if all you do is take 40 hours and make it 10 hour days I’m not that much happier.

One year a company did mandatory 'half-day Fridays' during the summer where the company closed after a half day on Friday.

But in order to do that we had to work 9 hour days Monday - Thursday.

That extra hour those four days felt torturous, so it meant four days of feeling awful just so I could leave a few hours early on a day in which most people (and myself) already weren't working too hard anyway.

I hated it.

This was at a very low output insurance company, btw, so there often wasn't huge pressure to get things done quickly (new software releases were once a quarter, and IT would complain that two months lead time wasn't enough time to provision a single new server that was a clone of an existing server, as an example of how slow things moved), and the days dragged on way long.

I worked more high pressure startups before where I was often there for 9 or more hours by necessity to meet deadlines that didn't feel so bad.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#32

Post by nine_k »

WillyWonkaJr wrote: post #18

Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending. Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-how...

The problem is not the absolute number of people, but the ratio of relatively younger people who work and produce something, and the elderly who already are too frail and can only consume (pensions, medical care, etc).

Japan has now fewer productive workers per elderly person than most developed countries.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#33

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

WillyWonkaJr wrote: post #18

Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending. Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-how...

When populations age and shrink, everything becomes more difficult.

Fewer working hands have to support more elderly retirees.

Less spending means less development, less maintenance, things break down and nobody can afford to fix them. Entire towns and villages slowly wither into nothing. It’s a long, slow, grinding, painful process with no other way around it.

And it’s easy to say “maybe that village should disappear” when it’s not your village.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#35

Post by reverendsteveii »

MBCook wrote: post #3

I wish these stories would say if the hours are changing or not. 32 hours, 4 days a week seems better to me. But if all you do is take 40 hours and make it 10 hour days I’m not that much happier.

not that much happier, no, but it's non-zero. esp with commute time, arranging lunch outside the home, parking or public transportation costs, childcare costs and all sorts of other little expenses that just vanish when you can stay home. Plus a 4x10 schedule doesn't result in a pay cut the way going from 5x8 to 4x8 would. My mom worked 4x10 as a nurse my entire childhood and loved the extra day.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#36

Post by WillyWonkaJr »

cableshaft wrote: post #25
jorblumesea wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the amount of people but your population pyramid. If your population halves, expect a lot of pain. Especially for the elderly.

Especially for something like Social Security safety nets, which relies on a larger younger population paying into it. I'm not sure if Japan has an equivalent but I think they do.

This is a great argument for individual retirement accounts rather than using the young to pay for the elderly. In the United States, if everyone's social security tax were put in an index fund, then everyone would be millionaires upon retirement.

There are solutions other than pleading with people to have more kids.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#37

Post by Spivak »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #29

I feel like it's been a long time fretting over falling birth rates and this is the first time I've seen anyone float the idea that making life better for people might make them a bit more inclined to make more people.

And treat parenting as something other than a passion project you work on nights and weekends.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#38

Post by lenerdenator »

WillyWonkaJr wrote: post #18

Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending. Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-how...

The problem isn't that companies are "afraid of not growing", or governments are "afraid to cut spending", it's that they've already signed off on paying back loans over the span of decades and were expecting to be able to pay off those loans with the value created by a growing population.

It's less about fear and more about economic realities.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#39

Post by bee_rider »

WillyWonkaJr wrote: post #18

Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending. Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-how...

A lot of Japanese videogames seem to be set in a sort of pseudo-post-apocalyptic sort of setting (Final Fantasy comes to mind), where it isn’t like… mad max raider stuff, but it is clear that society once was larger and more developed, and now things are diminished with some remnants. I’m wonder if their population dynamics inspired that.

Re: Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees

#40

Post by pamelafox »

sahila wrote: post #28
pamelafox wrote: post #13

Would schools and childcare providers also have 4-day workweeks? I really appreciate that I have 5 days of childcare now, as I find it exhausting to be 24/7 parenting two lil kids for two days straight (the weekends). If the norm was 4-day workweeks, I would pay my nanny overtime for Fridays. And then yes, maybe I'd get chores done on Friday! Currently, chores just don't get done ever. :D

What about the nanny wanting a 4 day work week, and what if they have children of their own?

Indeed! My nanny does have kids of her own. So I would either pay her overtime or I would find additional childcare for the 5th day.

I'm just pointing this out because I hear "4 day workweek" talked about a lot, but it's never clear to me if folks mean that everyone is getting those 4 days, including childcare providers or teachers, and if that's actually what folks want. People in this thread talk about getting chores done, but I'm not getting any chores done if I'm taking care of my lil kids, I'm just getting an even messier house. :D

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