Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week • Hacker News Board

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#41

Post by choeger » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #18

eric4smith wrote: post #10

It seems that we're slowly heading to a place where salaries are going to be much lower, because of less working hours and loss of the kinds of jobs that paid a good living wage. Or those same jobs will just pay a lower salary. It could be good or bad. The good part is, less buying. Less shopping. Smaller homes. Lower needs. etc. The bad part, all of that part of the economy that was depending those incomes is going…

House prices not necessarily. House prices are driven by demand and by ability to borrow. If everyone takes a pay cut, everyone can pay less and house prices should go down. The only reason house prices have gone so silly recently is insanely cheap credit has let everyone bid against each other to drive house prices up.

That's only part of the story. Current house prices are so high that only the absolute top of the income class can afford to pay off a mortgage.

Just an example: In Berlin you will pay around 850.000EUR for a newly-built single family home of around 160qm on a 600qm plot. With realistic interest rates of around 1.5 to 1.8% it will take you around 4.8% per year to pay this off in the (roughly) 25 to 30 years you have left of working years if you are a mid-thirties professional. This (conveniently) gives you a factor of 0.004 per month to pay for this house. That's a whopping 3400EUR per month.

Now normally you should not pay more than 33% of your net income for living. That means, such a house is affordable, even with the relatively low interest rates, for families with a net income of 10kEUR per month. How many mid-thirty families have that kind of income?

So what drives these prices is actually inherited wealth. Inherit real estate and you can cut that price easily in half. 1700EUR a month is much more reasonable and that does not even account for the even better interest rates you will see. Notably you just transfer your inherited wealth, you do not lose it.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#42

Post by arcturus17 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

n_cusan wrote: post #14

Growing up in Spain, I am currently living back here after living over 14 years in Germany and spending most of my working life there. I am half Spanish and half German and have a good perspective on both mentalities in general. In my opinion the problem in Spain is definitely the mindset towards work and the way it is perceived. Here work seems to always be some tedious chore that keeps you away from social live. I…

I'm Spanish and I've lived in Germany, the UK, and in short stints in the US, and some of what you say resonates with me. In particular:

> Here work seems to always be some tedious chore that keeps you away from social life

This is just one manifestation of what's more generally a very poor work culture, in what amounts to a giant, self-reinforcing negative feedback loop. Management often lacks professionalism, salaries are poor, and employees are demotivated and must therefore look to anything but work for fulfillment.

To be clear, I don't believe this is inherently Spanish, due to our genes, the climate, or our love for fiesta: similar phenomena could be observed locally in the US or Northern Europe. The problem in Spain is how widespread these attitudes are, in a macro context where good opportunities have been scarce for decades, probably due to the lack of a vision for a national productive model and any effective policies in this regard.

Personally I believe any permanent solution will need to come simultaneously in a top-down and bottom-up fashion, with both effective state policies and a change in attitudes from individuals. The catalyst would likely need to be a multi-partisan, national and universal social pact rallying institutions (politics, education, unions, businesses, etc.) around a well-defined vision. Anyone who follows Spanish politics knows that unfortunately at present that possibility is extremely remote.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#43

Post by te_chris » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

We had to go to 0.8 FTE due to trimming costs when covid hit - along with furloughs etc (UK based). We're all back up to 1FTE pay now, but we're basically still working 0.8.

Fridays are now "flexible". This means that you should check slack/email for fires, get your house in order for the next week, and, if there's something urgent you're working on (actually urgent, we haven't just reclassified all work as urgent) then you should probably be progressing it. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of the day.

It's brilliant.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#44

Post by teataster » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #20

fogihujy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less working hours per person definitely means more workers are required in order to fill a given amount of work hours. I'm not sure it's viable in today's financial climate, but I guess we're about to find out.

It's not necessarily less work per person, it's less time per person. That matters in cases where coverage is needed ( medical personnel, police, fire department, secretaries, phone support, hospitality, etc.) but in others where only the output matters ( like software engineering, lawyers, marketing, even factories in some cases etc. ), there have been multiple studies around the subject and they all claim that fewe…

While I wholeheartedly agree with you, I think we should be careful with this discourse. Rather than increases in productivity, increases in production should be emphasized. And yes, you cannot increase labor production without an increase in productivity, everything else equal.

Iirc, increase in production is about 40%. So working Monday to Thursday, you produce the same as someone, working 5 days produces Monday to next week's Tuesday morning.

Research is not solid, but promising.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#45

Post by Sander_Marechal » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

Rule35 wrote: post #23

dirktheman wrote: post #3

I've been working 4 days since 2006, when our first child was born. I don't see myself going back to working 5 days a week, even when the youngest one is older. I get to spend more time with our children, and when they're in school (I'm off on Wednesday) I have the entire day to myself. It's totally worth the pay cut! Fun fact: 50% of employed people here in The Netherlands are working parttime in some form.

In fact, 4 10s aren't much harder than 4 8s - for me travel time was dominant as I had to physically go run a lab. So I actually kept my salary while getting permanent three-day weekends. And I justified it by being able to get setup and cleaned up outside of normal work hours which was true and glorious.

I do 4x9. I like it, but with travel times the days can be quite long. When I have kids I want to go back to 4x8 so I can be home earlier.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#46

Post by switch007 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

eric4smith wrote: post #10

It seems that we're slowly heading to a place where salaries are going to be much lower, because of less working hours and loss of the kinds of jobs that paid a good living wage. Or those same jobs will just pay a lower salary. It could be good or bad. The good part is, less buying. Less shopping. Smaller homes. Lower needs. etc. The bad part, all of that part of the economy that was depending those incomes is going…

I definitely see lower wages due to less employment (as is rife in the UK with our zero hour contracts). House prices will rise unabated, compounding the cost of living issues.

I’ll only support reduced work weeks (because it’ll inevitably be used to reduce wages eventually) if our housing problem is fixed.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#47

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #42

n_cusan wrote: post #14

Growing up in Spain, I am currently living back here after living over 14 years in Germany and spending most of my working life there. I am half Spanish and half German and have a good perspective on both mentalities in general. In my opinion the problem in Spain is definitely the mindset towards work and the way it is perceived. Here work seems to always be some tedious chore that keeps you away from social live. I…

I'm Spanish and I've lived in Germany, the UK, and in short stints in the US, and some of what you say resonates with me. In particular: > Here work seems to always be some tedious chore that keeps you away from social life This is just one manifestation of what's more generally a very poor work culture, in what amounts to a giant, self-reinforcing negative feedback loop. Management often lacks professionalism, salar…

> and employees are demotivated and must therefore look to anything but work for fulfillment

It is a sad state of affairs that people are looking for "fulfillment" in work at all. Why are we still forced to work 40 hours a week or more to barely survive?

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#48

Post by lnsru » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

FullMetalBitch wrote: post #30

n_cusan wrote: post #14

Growing up in Spain, I am currently living back here after living over 14 years in Germany and spending most of my working life there. I am half Spanish and half German and have a good perspective on both mentalities in general. In my opinion the problem in Spain is definitely the mindset towards work and the way it is perceived. Here work seems to always be some tedious chore that keeps you away from social live. I…

Plenty of assholes bosses in Spain, in my experience I have been very honest from the beginning I had sick people I have to take care of and sometimes I have to leave early or I can't just go to work I was always willing to work remote that day when the job allowed it. The worst part of working in Spain is the work is usually from 9 to 14 and from 15 to 18 or variations of that, instead of 8 hours straight.

Well, we have in Germany in a German company mandatory 42 minutes long lunch break. So 8 hours straight isn’t feasible. I would really love to ditch 42 minutes long break and have real 15 minutes meal break with punchcard sign out/sign in. Now we just have one hour long breaks taking a walk and eating afterwards.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#49

Post by borjah » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

teataster wrote: post #38

borjah wrote: post #12

I wish it would be the beginning of something but I doubt it will. Businessmen in Spain sees the worker as another machine in the factory and a lot of them work actively to fired the workers that try to unionize. I talk from experience having worked in 2 some what small (50 to 150 workers), family-owned companies, where in one, the union representative was the son of the owner and in the other there wasn't any union…

My feeling is: spanish business is a somewhat feudal system. I do not believe that business owners are trying to maximize the efficacy of their resources. If it were so, this kind of proposals would be accepted by the business community, given research on the topic. I believe this proposal is a tremendous opportunity. I believe business want to control people. As such, one less day is less control. In exchange for Bu…

Can I steal the feudalism idea?

I agree with you. I didn't know how to label it but feudalism sounds right. And I think that employees are greater at fault that employers. We must know when to say enough is enough.

In the second company, I had a couple of interns and I saw that the first week they where doing like 1 or 2 hours every day more than they should by contract (4 hours/day contract). I invited them both to a coffee outside the company and talk about them about doing more hours for free.

I still have contact with one of them and before this thing of Covid exploded, we talked and said that he had with his intern the same conversation I had with him about free hours.

I think that we need a strong class / work mentality, something lost in recent years, and that it comes from education.

Re: Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

#50

Post by fogihujy » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #20

fogihujy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less working hours per person definitely means more workers are required in order to fill a given amount of work hours. I'm not sure it's viable in today's financial climate, but I guess we're about to find out.

It's not necessarily less work per person, it's less time per person. That matters in cases where coverage is needed ( medical personnel, police, fire department, secretaries, phone support, hospitality, etc.) but in others where only the output matters ( like software engineering, lawyers, marketing, even factories in some cases etc. ), there have been multiple studies around the subject and they all claim that fewe…

You're right. It's time spent and not work performed. Original comment edited.

However, in many professions being available for a given number of hours is often a major part of the job, and that means there will be a direct requirement to hire more people in order to cover the reduced working hours.