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Greece introduces the six day work week

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Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#61

Post by stavros »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #57
cyberax wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a whole bunch of toxic factors working synergistically. The Greek economy is dominated by low-wage tourist-oriented businesses, a whopping 20-30% of employed people are directly involved in them. And they have to compete against Turkey, Egypt, and other low-income countries. These businesses simply cannot pay high salaries, there's no profit margin for it. So people don't want to work in these miserable conditio…

Is it still common to expect workers to pay government-mandated bonuses back to their bosses in cash? I know this was a common practice some years ago.

I wouldn't say "common to expect", I'd say "bosses blackmail workers into it".

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#62

Post by dotinvoke »

kjksf wrote: post #20

I'm confused because economically it doesn't add up. Shortages of labor should lead to higher wages. Supply and demand. So it would make sense to relax laws prohibiting working more than 40hrs in order to unleash additional economic output i.e. increase the amount of money made. The article claims that for some reason that defies logic, it will just make employers demand more work for same amount of money. I see two…

Greek workers have the option to work in any of the 27 EU countries, and a few non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway.

Given that there is a shortage of skilled workers prompting this policy, it makes little sense to allow employers to demand more unpaid overtime of workers. That just means more Greeks working outside of Greece.

Greek workers already work more hours than any other EU country while making basically no money, so making Greeks work even more hours should probably not be a government priority.

Removing needless regulation and speeding up government permits would be a better idea.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#63

Post by boring-alterego »

krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

4 or 3 day work weeks are better.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#64

Post by stavros »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #14
lr4444lr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

One wonders if increasing the compensation offered for these jobs might result in less vacancies. I mean, I've heard theories (only theories, mind you) that this could have some effect. Seems unlikely, but maybe worth a try?

There are no vacancies. On the contrary, there's a whole slew of 20-somethings willing to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for six months for 1k/mo so they have some money during the winter.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#65

Post by fransje26 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #14
lr4444lr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

One wonders if increasing the compensation offered for these jobs might result in less vacancies. I mean, I've heard theories (only theories, mind you) that this could have some effect. Seems unlikely, but maybe worth a try?

Why pay them more, if you can make them work two extra hours per day, for free.. :-/

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#66

Post by DougN7 »

emporas wrote: post #38
krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

People not working at all, or working significantly less, is not acceptable by any political system of the western countries. The proof here, is the exponential rate in which debt goes up. That debt is directly funding the anti-automation each political system imposes. In other words, automation has to be stopped, and it's gonna take as much money as it needs. This anti-automation process, created the biggest bubbles…

Can you point to the triple A derivatives blowing up? I’d like to read more about that.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#67

Post by dotinvoke »

lr4444lr wrote: post #50
Zarathustra30 wrote: post #12

Isn't Greece's unemployment rate the highest in the E.U.? Yes, they may be "low-quality" workers applying for jobs, but if a company can't find "high-quality," they must make do. How did we lose the art of training new hires?

The problem with training new hires is that they can leave with the the skillset you invested in them. I realize of course that employer loyalty erosion may be in large part to blame for that being a big risk, but the issue should be acknowledged in an era of increased job switching.

Job switching should be less of a problem with a 12% unemployment rate, though.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#68

Post by bjourne »

kjksf wrote: post #20

I'm confused because economically it doesn't add up. Shortages of labor should lead to higher wages. Supply and demand. So it would make sense to relax laws prohibiting working more than 40hrs in order to unleash additional economic output i.e. increase the amount of money made. The article claims that for some reason that defies logic, it will just make employers demand more work for same amount of money. I see two…

> If employer A has profit to spare and could make even more profit if he had more employees, what logic would lead him to NOT raise wages and steal workers from employer B?

Cause employer B is his buddy and they regularly play together at the golf course? Collusion among the elite classes is extremely common. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#69

Post by dualogy »

ses1984 wrote: post #46
EncomLab wrote: post #23

AGI and General Purpose robots are both so far off in the future they should be considered science fiction at this point. The "Woz Standard" - a robot is dropped in front of a random house and proceeds without any assistance to brew a cup of coffee - is hard to imagine being met before 2040, if not even later.

I like making coffee. Cleaning my bathroom seems like a better benchmark.

Totally agree, with all this attention to "smart devices" in recent years I wonder where my consumer-sized flying de-duster mini-drone or something like that is? Sure the floor's sorted even with a 100%-non-smart robo-vac (and thusly, a flyer could just wipe or blow the dust down to the ground instead of any complicated gathering acrobatics), but the ground's just approx. half of dust-prone surface area..

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#70

Post by emporas »

RandomLensman wrote: post #58
emporas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People not working at all, or working significantly less, is not acceptable by any political system of the western countries. The proof here, is the exponential rate in which debt goes up. That debt is directly funding the anti-automation each political system imposes. In other words, automation has to be stopped, and it's gonna take as much money as it needs. This anti-automation process, created the biggest bubbles…

What triple A derivatives are blowing up?

George Gammon made a video yesterday about it. I don't personally know what derivatives even mean, but i do know in 2007 something like that happened, triple A derivatives of mortgages or something.

Even if that's not it, the bubbles will start pop off soon, end of summer or end of the year, and it will take years for the process to complete, 5 years probably. For 5 years, each bubble will pop one by one.

My point is, at the end of the process, and only then, serious automation will start to happen, because they will not have the ammo to stop it.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QQ_CcNPXjQ

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