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Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

theguardian.com

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

#61

Post by neilwilson »

arcturus17 wrote: post #52
Rule35 wrote: post #21

> “The only red lines are that we want to see a true reduction of working hours and no loss of salary or jobs.” And there it is. (The proposal is the government pays a fraction of this for a few years before sticking the companies with this.) It's basically just a minimum wage law but written the other way. This always sticks the bill with the only person actually paying to begin with, the business owner. If society…

Some economists in Spain say that starting from this premise, and trying to apply it universally for the economy may have disastrous results. The problem here is the effect on productivity. While there are some jobs where decreasing 20% of working hours while keeping productivity constant may be perfectly feasible, there are lots of jobs in Spain's precarious service-oriented economy where this is not possible. For e…

"The problem here is the effect on productivity."

If you make labour 'reassuringly expensive', then the only way to maintain output is to invest in capital deepening.

Which is the only place productivity comes from.

Capitalists need to start doing some capitalism.

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

#62

Post by joaodlf »

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…

> The problem in Spain is how prevalent these attitudes are, in a macro context where good opportunities have been scarce for decades

This really nails it. I'm originally from Portugal (now living and working in the UK). Staying late and maintaining presence was a really big thing in Portugal. You really are looked down on when you leave early, it's a really terrible work culture, it genuinely felt like people would either overwork themselves or just generally do nothing with that extra time.

I tell my friends this story all the time: When I first arrived to the UK and started working, I asked my company about having my work email on my phone, my manager just had a completely blank face - "why do you need your work email on your phone?". I have been happily employed with this company for nearly 8 years now, never once feeling the need to stay late or go beyond the contracted hours. If I put in overtime, it's because I want to (most of the time because I actually enjoy the work). Oh, and I am paid for overtime. Completely unheard of in Portugal.

I know a lot of these things might be company culture specific, but there is definitely a level within geography - The lesser opportunities available, the more is expected out of you. As if having the opportunity to work should be seen as some sort of blessing.

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

#63

Post by dalbasal »

"The Workweek" is, surprisingly, a really deep topic.

Keynes' 15 hr work week prediction, for example, is a fascinating rabbit to travel down. The typical economics professors' "why it failed" explanations (at least circa 2005) are tellingly evasive. They preserve all Keynes' premises^ with a "what "happened" scenario that threads a tiny needle.

IMO, regardless of which rabbit hole you follow, it turns out that workweek is a very culturally defined thing. It isn't very reactive to economic forces at all. People get rich. Societies get rich. Women join the workforce. Efficiency rises by N000%. Workweeks remain similar.

Where quantity of work does change, it tends to be outside the workweek paradigm. Retirement became a big thing. Children don't work. Young adults do a lot of college. Women join the workforce, or don't. IE, we might work fewer years. Fewer people might work. Shortening workweeks rarely happens.

IMO, empirically, workweeks seem to be mostly a social institution... not an "economic" one. IE, economic explanations have very little predictive power because "out-of-theory" stuff is more important.

^[1]advancements in efficiency, [2] substitution effects, [3] income effects.

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

#64

Post by arcturus17 »

neilwilson wrote: post #61
arcturus17 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some economists in Spain say that starting from this premise, and trying to apply it universally for the economy may have disastrous results. The problem here is the effect on productivity. While there are some jobs where decreasing 20% of working hours while keeping productivity constant may be perfectly feasible, there are lots of jobs in Spain's precarious service-oriented economy where this is not possible. For e…

"The problem here is the effect on productivity." If you make labour 'reassuringly expensive', then the only way to maintain output is to invest in capital deepening. Which is the only place productivity comes from. Capitalists need to start doing some capitalism.

I'm not sure your comment addresses anything I've said, except nitpicking a single sentence and taking it out on a tangent.

What kinds of capital deepening can one do for our tourism-oriented and increasingly public-sector-dependent service economy?

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

#65

Post by dalbasal »

The immediate implications of reducing workweeks varies a lot by job type.

Doing 8 hrs of work done in 5 is not possible for a dental nurse, waiter or an air traffic controller. Those jobs literally need asses in seats for N hours. The hour reduction game is almost 0-sum. Do less work. Hire more employees. Pay less. Charge more.

This is a lot of jobs.

For a software developer, hr executive, or user happiness advocate... reduced working hours is not necessarily 0-sum. What we think of, when we think of reduced work hours depends on which of these is our anchor.

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

#66

Post by varjag »

lnsru wrote: post #48
FullMetalBitch wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why 42, specifically? It can't be some HHGTG joke, it's Germany!

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

#67

Post by refurb »

Rule35 wrote: post #25
jonplackett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Real estate rarely goes down, outside of a total bubble deflation. People just hold onto it longer, unable to profitably sell, further trapping others in a cycle of rent. The current bubble will drain money from producers to the value-empty mortgage sector for decades.

Real estate rarely goes down, outside of a total bubble deflation.

Detroit, Baltimore, Camden would like a word with you and your theory that housing never goes down.

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

#68

Post by DoingIsLearning »

choeger wrote: post #33
tsimionescu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that wages have never kept up with productivity increase. Companies are extracting more and more productivity out of their employees, which translates to ever increasing profits. But this is not an economical law. It's absolutely possible to sacrifice ever increases in growth for more worker time.

Not everywhere. There are many professions that do not take part in the growth of productivity. Medical Doctors for instance (even though some radiologists try hard to) are limited by interactions with their patients. The same holds for employees at points of sales, they only take part indirectly by selling more higher-priced goods. So a shop owner that wants to stay open sees a 20% reduction in attendance by their e…

> Medical Doctors for instance (even though some radiologists try hard to) are limited by interactions with their patients

Strongly disagree, productivity increase is everywhere, surgery recovery times have been drastically decreased in the past decades, and recovery protocols accelerated across the board.

Just because doctors have a limit throughput of how many patients per day they can see, it doesn't mean that hospitals and clinics aren't increasing their productivity as a whole. If you are seing less of the same patients per week then your productivity has increased, as simple as that.

The key point GP is highlight is that productivity has basically decoupled from salaries since the 1970's, i.e. we are all collectively producing more value whilst collectively getting payed less in proportion to the value generated.

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

#69

Post by mattmanser »

joaodlf wrote: post #62
arcturus17 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The problem in Spain is how prevalent these attitudes are, in a macro context where good opportunities have been scarce for decades This really nails it. I'm originally from Portugal (now living and working in the UK). Staying late and maintaining presence was a really big thing in Portugal. You really are looked down on when you leave early, it's a really terrible work culture, it genuinely felt like people would…

The irony of this and the parent comment is the UK regularly come up as a country that the exact same problem happens in.

The UK has notoriously low productivity compared to Europe and the US, and longer average work hours than the rest of Europe.

These are larger aggregate studies. I wonder why both your experiences of the UK seem so at odds with the observed studies? Is it just the field you're in?

Some examples:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/british-workers-putting-longest-...

https://www.businessleader.co.uk/uk-employees-work-the-longe...

EDIT: Downvoted for actual studies vs anecdotes. Fabulous. Not only that, these studies have been coming out for years.

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

#70

Post by vidarh »

mattmanser wrote: post #69
joaodlf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem in Spain is how prevalent these attitudes are, in a macro context where good opportunities have been scarce for decades This really nails it. I'm originally from Portugal (now living and working in the UK). Staying late and maintaining presence was a really big thing in Portugal. You really are looked down on when you leave early, it's a really terrible work culture, it genuinely felt like people would…

The irony of this and the parent comment is the UK regularly come up as a country that the exact same problem happens in. The UK has notoriously low productivity compared to Europe and the US, and longer average work hours than the rest of Europe. These are larger aggregate studies. I wonder why both your experiences of the UK seem so at odds with the observed studies? Is it just the field you're in? Some examples: h…

Indeed, this from Eurostat includes Portugal and Spain, both of which have lower average working hours than the UK.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/D...

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