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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

#91

Post by arcturus17 »

severino wrote: post #32
ladyanita22 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you will downvote me, but as an inhabitant of such country, the truth is, this is the result of the socialist and incompetent government that is in power due to the even more incompetent opposition. It's been long since we were the leaders of employment creation in the eurozone, back when Rajoy was in power.

> Of course you will downvote me... Maybe they're downvoting you because they are also Spanish, they know who Rajoy is and what he did, and what effects a pandemic produces on your economy regardless of the party in the government.

> regardless of the party in the government

I certainly do not miss Rajoy, but I whole-heartedly believe that a social-communist government is possibly the worst alternative to get us out of this hole.

We need jobs, a lot of them, not only in the public sector, and I think that our current government is tremendously ill-equipped for this task.

Has anyone noticed how members of the government rarely, if ever, talk about job creation anymore? Politicians will lie about anything, but they don't even dare lie about this - they simply avoid these murky waters altogether.

My theory is they know full-well that the only path to growth and private sector job creation is by taking measures (that moderates like Minister of the Economy Nadia Calviño possibly support) like modifying labor laws and lowering taxes which sound right-wing and therefore sit especially poorly with the communist wing of the government.

The only alternative to that is, as some communists like Iglesias or Garzón are consistently pointing out, to nationalize a bunch of industries (they've talked about examples ranging from banks to media companies) and turn to a centralized economy.

I hope I'm wrong but I clearly do not see how the situation will improve under the current circumstances.

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

#92

Post by vidarh »

dalbasal wrote: post #90
vidarh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my grandparents entered the workforce in Norway, the working week was typically 54 hours. When my parents entered the workforce it was limited to no more than 45 hours, and a couple of years later it was down to 42.5 hours. By the time I was born it was 40 hours. Before I entered the workforce, it was down to 37.5 hours for most employees (it is legally limited to 40 hours, but 37.5 has been the norm since 1986)…

I think you may be misunderestimating the original prediction.^ He predicted those drastic reduction in working hours within a generation or two, writing in 1930... It was supposed to happen by 1980. The prediction was widely head, and relied on two non controversial ideas: income effect and substitution effect. Higher hourly wages make working more worthwhile, so people work more; Higher overall wages allow people t…

I'm fully aware of the original prediction. The point is that while it was overoptimistic about the pace of reduction, working hours have declined, and have done so substantially.

I don't think you can suggest that economic factors like efficiency has not affected this - increased efficiency has been an enabler that allowed these reductions in working hours to happen without according income reductions. Without efficiency improvements, demanding these kind of reductions would not have been viable.

> Norway is a small-sih country, and often an outlier, so IDK if it makes a good example.

There is not a single country in Europe that hasn't seem a similar pattern of reductions. I used Norway as an example because I was familiar with the reductions, but this is not isolated by any means.

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

#93

Post by benhurmarcel »

airhead969 wrote: post #11

By contrast, the FAANG workweek is 8-14 hours, 5-7 days a week with the possibility of being on-call for emergencies and contacted after hours. Working 72 hr/week while making $200k/yr is only $53/hour. To get to $80/hour would require a salary of $300k. $100/hr is $375k. Oh, and taxes because not an owner of capitalist assets.

Spanish workers earn closer to 6 $/hour.

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

#94

Post by permo-w »

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…

To me, that attitude sounds like a good thing. It sounds like the Spanish, or at least the Spanish that you’ve come across, haven’t been sucked in by the unforgiving ideals of capitalism. It pleases me that they’d find ways to enjoy their life that don’t involve economic efficiency

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

#95

Post by buran77 »

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.

This is true but in many companies they won't give you the 4 10s option. The reason is that the company can cut 20% pay but realistically set the same targets (where possible). So the expectations don't realistically drop by 20%, just the time you have to reach them and the pay. Depending on how much you were payed to begin with you may find this a reasonable compromise.

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

#96

Post by brmgb »

vidarh wrote: post #89
brmgb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK has notoriously low productivity compared to Europe and the US, and longer average work hours than the rest of Europe. You should be very wary of productivity statistics coming from Europe. I have worked most of the past decade in France. Like most highly educated employee in France, my contract is in days and not in hours. Officialy and legally, I have no set hours but for accounting purpose I have always o…

People in the UK "officially and legally" have much the same situation, and in reality most people still work longer than the officially stated hours. Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees , not gathered from data on labour contracts . E.g. pretty much all of the EU numbers draws on the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS)

> Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees, not gathered from data on labour contracts.

Then you are looking at it extremely poorly without obnoxious quotes.

Most of the official stastics on productivity like the one published by Eurostat are derived from the total amount of hours worked which is estimated based on contracts.

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

#97

Post by dd_roger »

tsimionescu wrote: post #27
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…

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.

The argument about increased productivity is a fallacy. Only the primary and secondary sectors have a long track record of increased productivity, in services on the other hands -which represent an ever growing share of the working population in western countries- productivity has been stagnating for multiple decades (in some industries it's actually receding, thankfully compensated by the few industries that have good growth).

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

#98

Post by vidarh »

brmgb wrote: post #96
vidarh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the UK "officially and legally" have much the same situation, and in reality most people still work longer than the officially stated hours. Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees , not gathered from data on labour contracts . E.g. pretty much all of the EU numbers draws on the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS)

> Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees, not gathered from data on labour contracts. Then you are looking at it extremely poorly without obnoxious quotes. Most of the official stastics on productivity like the one published by Eurostat are derived from the total amount of hours worked which is estimated based on contracts.

EU-LFS, which I referenced, is published by Eurostat, is a core part of the official Eurostat data, and is survey-based, not derived from estimates of contracts.

Here is Eurostat's EU-LFS data browser for "hours worked per week of full time employment":

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tps00071/defa...

You can find the actual questionnaires used for carrying out these surveys here:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

You'll note they include asking for the same information (estimates of hours worked) several different ways (with and without overtime, and asking separately for the overtime) and that they include instructions to the interviewer for confirming that the result is internally consistent.

EU-LFS is the main source of data on those aspects for the EU. Measuring overall productivity then comes from matching economic indicators up against hours worked.

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

#99

Post by dirktheman »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #45
Rule35 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did 4x9 also for a while, also with a long (1h15) commute. Was OK for a year, but I was glad that my next job was 4x8 again, with 1 day WFH. So 3 days in the office, 1 day from home. Perfect!

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

#100

Post by mattmanser »

brmgb wrote: post #96
vidarh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the UK "officially and legally" have much the same situation, and in reality most people still work longer than the officially stated hours. Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees , not gathered from data on labour contracts . E.g. pretty much all of the EU numbers draws on the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS)

> Most of the numbers I can find for Europe is from surveys of employees, not gathered from data on labour contracts. Then you are looking at it extremely poorly without obnoxious quotes. Most of the official stastics on productivity like the one published by Eurostat are derived from the total amount of hours worked which is estimated based on contracts.

You're just making stuff up, here's a study that contradicts you directly:

https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/...

See page 14 of the executive study:

- However, simple international comparisons can be misleading. In particular, the UK position (mid-range) is distorted by the fact that, compared with most other EU states, the UK employs a high proportion of part-time women workers (working fewer than 30 hours a week).

- Amongst full-time employees, the UK shows high levels of long hours working (over 48 hours a week), especially amongst men where the UK has the highest level of long hours working in the EU. Just over one-fifth (22 per cent) of UK men working full-time work long hours compared with an average of one tenth (11 per cent) across the other EU member states.

- Full-time male managers work the longest hours in the UK and across the EU member states as a whole. However, (on average) UK managers do not work longer hours than their EU counterparts

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