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Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

bloomberg.com

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Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#51

Post by DCoder »

cylinder wrote: post #36
qntty wrote: post #35

I'd like to see more experiments with a 4-day/8-hour work week. https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/396527/case-32-hour-...

Agree. Six hours a day seems foolish. All that time getting ready for work, commuting, etc only to spend six hours at work. I'm a much bigger believer in just being closed on Fridays if possible

Somewhat on topic: I work 4-days/10-hours: 2 morning hours from home, commute to the office clears my head, 8 hours in the office, and Friday is free.

Pros:

- three-day weekends all year long

- 20% less commute time

- magically enforces the "Read-only Friday" rule

- if I have to handle an emergency on Friday, it means overtime pay

- Friday is good for running errands

Cons:

- clients/coworkers still work on Fridays, so I can't ignore my email entirely

- occasional meetings happen on Friday

This is probably not a good schedule for everyone, but I have been working it for 2 years now and I like it a lot. Although none of my coworkers are following this example...

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#52

Post by trynewideas »

In the Bloomberg story, but not in the Independent story:

"Still, the added hiring by the municipality has helped the coffers of the national government by reducing unemployment costs by 4.7 million kronor during the first 18 months of the trial due to new jobs, according to the interim report."

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#53

Post by gambiting »

dijit wrote: post #27
donmatito wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely false. French workers (at mid-management level and above - not hourly workers) work long hours. Longer than German and Nordic countries, for example, where leaving at 5pm is the norm and leaving later is more a sign of poor work planning than of dedication. I think workday hours are similar to American employees, but work less in the weekends and have more vacations.

This is not my experience. I work for a French multinational games company and I'm situated in Sweden. It's astonishingly common for my French counterparts to "arrive" at there computer at 10:30 each day and head out the door shortly before 17:00. Not to mention the 1.5hour or so lunch they tend to take. This is a sample of maybe 20 people, and maybe it's a culture of the company more than the country, but I've notic…

I think I work for the same French multinational games company ;-)

I do work with people from both our Swedish and French studios and I can definitely confirm what you said, both ways.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#55

Post by tunnuz »

rocky1138 wrote: post #54

The article is light on details. What "costs" are they talking about?

They needed to employ 17 extra people on top of the 68 employees taking part in the pilot, in order to guarantee the level of service. Which to me is a win (17 people got a job) but it is clearly a cost increase that the employer was not ready to accept.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#56

Post by falcolas »

So, 1.5 million US dollars over two years (less, if you account for the saved unemployment costs. ref. trynewideas comment), for happier employees and better care. I personally have a hard time seeing this as any form of indication that it's "spiraling out of control".

I agree with other commenters, this smells of politics more than economics.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#57

Post by dqv »

falcolas wrote: post #56

So, 1.5 million US dollars over two years (less, if you account for the saved unemployment costs. ref. trynewideas comment), for happier employees and better care. I personally have a hard time seeing this as any form of indication that it's "spiraling out of control". I agree with other commenters, this smells of politics more than economics.

Unfortunately it may not work due to the politics, but it's one of those things where govrrnment-subsidized research will help businesses down the line. The cost on paper versus real cost is not immediately obvious.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#58

Post by rebootthesystem »

> In a perfect situation this would have led to higher employment numbers and happier employees.

What kind of hippie logic is this?

Happier employees?

I don't know ANYONE who would be happier if they got a 25% pay cut except for, maybe, single hippies who want to smoke dope all day and have no responsibilities. The average person, on the other hand, and particularly those with kids, would be devastated by a 25% cut in pay.

Do you know what would happen? They would have to look for a second job. they would end-up working two shifts. Fantastic. Great for the kids, BTW.

Higher employment?

OK, then. Let's cut everyone to four hours a day and employ twice as many people.

The truth of the matter is that you'll end-up employing exactly the same number of people. It takes N hours to get M things done. And that requires X people. You can play with how many hours an individual is devoted to a task but you still need M hours. Which means you either have X people or some number above that based on how many hours you cut.

Wait a minute, that's higher employment! No, it isn't. Those who get their 25% pay cut still need to live, feed the kids, pay the bills, etc. So they go find another job or take-on a second shift. The net effect is still exactly the same: You need N hours to get M things done and that requires X people. You can "slice-up" people so it looks like each individual is working less hours on a particular task but on the aggregate the equation still holds.

It's like energy. If you need 1,000 Joules you can't arbitrarily decide 750 Joules will do. No matter how you slice it, you still need 1,000 Joules.

Higher employment isn't a useful metric at all, even to analyze the workforce outside of this experiment. If you have 100% employment at minimum wage you can claim "higher employment" yet the actual results would be net negative and quite destructive for the population. Employment needs to be seen in the context of reality, not in a simplistic "more is better" metric devoid of any utility.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#59

Post by giarc »

falcolas wrote: post #56

So, 1.5 million US dollars over two years (less, if you account for the saved unemployment costs. ref. trynewideas comment), for happier employees and better care. I personally have a hard time seeing this as any form of indication that it's "spiraling out of control". I agree with other commenters, this smells of politics more than economics.

$1.5 million for 68 employees at a nursing home.

I work in a healthcare system with 120,000 employees. Let's say we reduced hours to 6. Using the Swedish numbers, that would cost our organization $2.6 billion dollars, or roughly 10% of annual budget.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#60

Post by giarc »

stinos wrote: post #14

the costs outweigh the benefits Well, if you put a low enough price on people's happiness, health, and quality of work, then yes I guess. Anyway: I hope the people involved in the pilot and happily doing 6 hours shifts now, won't take it too hard if the pilot should be stopped and they're back to 8 hour shifts.

The trial was for 68 employees and cost $1.7 million USD (they had to hire additional staff). Imagine you took that $1.7m and spent it on those 68 employees. $25,000/employee would go a long way to increasing happiness with perks etc.
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