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Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

theatlantic.com

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Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#41

Post by mseebach »

danbruc wrote: post #21

Something similar seems a good idea to me, too. Example. Germany has 42 million employees and 3 million unemployeds. Reduce working hours from 40 to 37 hours per week - with reduction in salary, but probably not the full 7.5 % - and hire one new employee for every 13 employees. And there you go - no more unemployment and more leisure time for everybody. Saved unemployment benefits can be used to counter salary reduct…

So these 3 million unemployed people can be evenly spread out over the economy, sharing in 3/40ths of the jobs of doctors, nurses, machinists, programmers, cleaners, gardeners, engineers, chefs, management consultants, inbiss cook and street sweepers?

And this can happen with less than a few percent friction cost?

Explaining why this will fail, let alone describing how it did indeed fail where it was tried is econ 101 material. As someone else pointed out, look up Lump of Labour fallacy.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#42

Post by Moru »

oxymoron wrote: post #22
belorn wrote: post #7

> It's unclear how, or if, a lunch break will factor into the scheme. It's a common misconception that eight-hour work day means 9-17 everywhere. In Sweden, the common work day is from 8-17, meaning 8 hours paid time and 1 hour non-paid lunch hour. To my understanding, it's more or less required by law. So if you look on how many hours we will be "at work", we will go from working one hour more than Americans to one…

It's true that most people work 9-17 in Sweden, but it isn't legally mandated. A lot of the details about when and how we work is decided through collective bargaining between businesses and unions. This system has very deep historical roots, and is something that the social democrats (that dominated swedish politics for a long time) and the unions are very proud of. Because of this Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage…

That's funny, I have never had a job 9-17 in sweden during my 25 years of working life. First job was 6:48 - 16:00 (industry) or something odd like that. Next was 8:00-16:30.(university) Also worked 11-21 (store) and shorter other days at same job. Now I have pretty flexible times as long as I get together 40 hours per week.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#43

Post by mseebach »

danbruc wrote: post #40
nerfhammer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called the lump of labor fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

I call the fallacy a fallacy - it seems way to simplistic to me. There is obviously a fluctuation in work demand, for example all the seasonal work, but this fluctuation is not arbitrarily large. Take it to the extreme, 20 instead of 40 working hours per week - how would this not require twice as many employees, maybe even a few more because of reduced efficiency, to yield the same output? In essence this is nothing…

It's hard to put this very politely, but you're making a fool out of yourself now. Lump of Labour fallacy isn't crazy voodoo economics, it's incredibly well established. Read the Wikipedia article, then look through some of the references. Your concerns are amply addressed.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#44

Post by eigenvector »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #23
Brashman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience in the US is the same. 9-5 is just a saying. More typically a work day is 9-6 or 8-5 to account for a 1 hour non-paid lunch.

I'm not really sure where the term 9-5 came from considering I've never had a job or known anyone who actually worked 9-5 with a one hour lunch.

7.25 hours of work plus 1 hour of unpaid lunch and including 0.5 hours of paid breaks is the standard in the Canadian public sector. That is, 9:00 am to 5:15 pm, 7.25 hours of which are paid and 6.75 of which are spent working.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#46

Post by marvin »

read wrote: post #6

I can see an argument a 6-hour day hurts workers. They get less pay while putting in more effort. If it's true there are 5 stages to producing ideas, a 6-hour day benefits from unconscious thinking done away from the task [1] at lower pay. Whereas an 8-hour work day benefits some of a worker's thinking for their non-work projects, which currently happens on the job. The substance behind the work is more important tha…

Sounds like a win-win situation to me. I'd be very willing to take a modest pay cut while still "giving" my employer the fruits of my subconscious labor. And if the economy is reasonably efficient, wages will eventually come to reflect the increase in relative productivity regardless. If they don't, it's not really a big deal - two extra hours of leisure per day is a big deal.

Hell, putting the stuff you've figured out overnight on paper (or into the IDE) is very satisfying even in the absence of payment, because for a few hours, you can be super efficient. This always feels like a strong and productive use of time.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#47

Post by dpweb »

This sounds great for salaried people where an hourly bill rate doesn't play in, but I doubt will get much traction when you're getting paid by the hour. Less hours = less revenue and upping the bill rate to compensate that's not going to catch on. Companies will just view it as a higher bill rate.

Too bad though, because I've worked in alot of offices and from home, contracting etc.. Clearly at least two hours out of eight are wasted every day. People take smoke breaks, people chit chat, go to lunch, browse the web, stay in meetings too long, and on and on. I could see people really trying to be productive knowing they are only on a six hour day.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#48

Post by leccine »

I think first thing is to clarify why we have 8 hours work days. It is simply reflecting to the past when most of the workers worked in a factory. Several things changed in the last 50 years and nobody was revising these "standards". I am really glad that Sweden is revising these laws. It would be fair to have 4 days workweeks and 6 hours workdays. That would be closer to fair than the current situation. Corporate greed has to be stopped and regulated so that people can get a better life and more time with their family.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#49

Post by Dewie »

mseebach wrote: post #37
tegeek wrote: post #11

I live & work in Stockholm, Sweden. I start work at 8:00 & leave at sharp 15:00 to pick my son from day care. And these are the most beautiful days of my life. I play with my son every day, I'm doing hobby projects, preparing for summer marathon, read HN & CS papers on cutting edge & getting full 8 hrs sleep. Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys? Human side of life is much more than living in a…

There's nothing wrong with it, but all the parties involved just need to be conscious of the tradeoff involved: shifting focus from the production of wealth to the consumption of it. As long as the production is higher than the consumption, it's all good and sustainable. But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensiv…

> But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensive public services.

It seems that outsiders (I am guessing you are, by the way you frame it) are eager to remind us that we have large public sectors, or whatever you want to call it. It feels a bit rude to me; as if you know better than us how our societies/governments are structured.

We do know that money doesn't grow on trees. We do know that "free" doesn't mean "from out of nowhere", handed to us by our benevolent, watchful, government.

Does it really need to be pointed out that if you work less (absolutely, not just measured by hours), you will be less productive? Please. Give us some credit.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#50

Post by smsm42 »

rdl wrote: post #32

I don't think 6h/day of work is particularly unreasonable, if you can avoid losing blocks of time to useless activities (unneeded meetings, or waiting for people). If you're remote, and only clock-in when actually working, spending 3-4h/day working productively can easily outdo someone spending 10h/day in an office. I've worked in places where my ultimate client billable rate was obscene, and tracked to the 6min or 1…

How shorter work day would eliminate any useless activities? Useless activities happen not because work day is too long but because work processes not organized perfectly. Shorter workday would not make processes any better, so the same percentage of time would be wasted.
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