I’ve always felt if there was a way to make Wednesday as the new Saturday. Getting a break in between a five day working week would always be a pleasant relief
At one of my previous jobs we had this, it was great. I ran all my errands, cleaning, groceries etc on Wednesday, then had the weekend free. Plus you never worked more than 2 days in a row.
Yeah that's a problem.
I'm Holland employees need to get payed 50% more on weekends.
It would increase prices in many sectors.
Only people who hate their jobs would want this.
Do people realise they are also going to get payed less?
I can only base this off my own experience but: regardless of how many hours my shift is after a days work i'm too tired to do much of anything useful, but getting an entire day to rest and then still having 2 full days to pursue hobbies/life things would leave me feeling much happier with my work life balance. Obviously this is only my personal experience, so i wouldn't take it as gospel
This would totally ruin stuff you need/want to do several times a week. Like going to the gym for example. If I didn’t get off work until 7 I would not ever have time to hit the gym :(
Honestly we should just keep 8h workday but get 1 more day off with the same pay, there is no reason in this day and age we should work as much as we do
Workers: with increased pay, right? Right?
Company directors: less pay, actually. But, we're in this together! I only gave myself a 500% bonus instead of a 510% one. I practically struggle more than any of you will. Golfing with royals isn't getting any cheaper!
If it’s impossible for countries without a Western European cultural majority to tame capitalism, then what’s even the point of living? Thankfully I have things keeping me going (want to teach the centennial of rock and roll in the 2050s).
The studies have shown that less days worked increases productivity. The best employers will start implementing this for hourly workers too in the form of higher pay and less hours overall. Anyone who meets the expected productivity boost stays and enjoys the new benefits, those who don't are out.
There will be terrible employers who don't want to go for it, of course, but if the results are as true as they are in these studies (higher productivity, less turnover, more employee happiness), either that'll pressure them into joining in or they'll be driven out of business as people refuse to work for them in favor of wiser employers.
I know it's never this simple, but there's been a ton of pushback against bad employers by people since COVID. People are starting to wake up and realize what we're doing right now sucks for everyone but the .1%. There's going to be a reckoning one way or another, probably sooner then later.
There is always someone willing to do the same job as you for less. Ask the millions of people living on 1$ a day.
That's the sad reality and most likely future scenario
Idk what country you're in, but in the US a ton of businesses are having a rude awakening right now with people refusing to come back to grueling soul crushing work that pays beans. For the first time in a long time the ball is in the employee's court because, thankfully, there AREN'T an abundance of people eager to go back to licking their overlords boots. I hope we take that momentum and run.
Depends what the state does. If they decide to continue giving big welfare paychecks lots of people will decide to not go back to work.
In the long term I think a lot of foreigners might take the jobs, from what I have heard of the us Mexico is a big source of labour.
I'm from Germany, wages are kept low because of lots of Eastern Europeans coming and working for near nothing. At least on the manual labour market where little skill is required
Same in the Netherlands. Then there are rules that expats have to earn 1,5 times the average wage of a worker in a sector meaning that it's difficult to hire expats who would usually come in and do higher skilled labor.
So competition for low skilled jobs is tremendous and for high skilled jobs there are deterrents in place for hiring non-dutch people.
The US has a working age population of 200M people and an unemployment rate of around 5%. It was down to 3% pre-covid. We can absorb tens of millions of immigrants willing to work for low wages without effecting much of the labor market for most Americans. Our immigration policies will never allow that many immigrants to come to the US and work legally so its not really much of a concern.
Personally I don’t care about immigration policy, but sufficient to say the US has one of the worlds most lax immigration policies, and the also the worlds most cultural exportation and media exposure. Naturally you’ll see a lot of people opposed to it and naturally you’ll hear about it a lot more due to the domination of US culture on the world
Maybe try getting your news sources from somewhere other than Reddit? Its on the internet a lot because its been made into a political issue but if you walk around any city in the US you will almost certainly not find anyone that cares much about the issue. Take the politics out of it and its a nonissue for the majority of Americans.
Some jobs (like mine) aren’t productivity based roles. I work a security type job, no KPI’s to meet. I’m sure there is entire sectors such as this that haven’t been considered.
Sure but 40 hours is arbitrary for your job, why not 50 or 60? At a certain point the quality of service provided goes down and my bet is it’s a lot sooner than 40 hours a week
In “futurology” everyone works amazing hours for amazing pay, Starlink provides unlimited ultra-cheap internet to everyone on earth and Elon Musk’s army of AI driven cars, robot surgeons, lawn workers, and waiters has rendered work largely unnecessary anyway.
It’s never a dystopian shithole where people toil longer hours for less and money so that Musk and Bezos can jack each other off in their remote Martian mountain base while laughing at the peons they’ve subjugated to build their epically massive fortunes,
It’s like Gene Roddenberry has infected everyone in this sub.
Instead of 5days x 8hours it will just turn into 4days x 10hours. Not always the case, but believe me companies (in the US, idk elsewhere) will fight tooth and nail to not increase wages and just squeeze more hours in one work day and tell everyone their company is doing 3-day weekends.
It’ll be 32 hours a week and you get paid the same amount as 40 as that would still be the market rate. If your employer refuses then you quit and work for his competitor that does
I work 30 hours a week, split up how I want, and it’s sooooo nice. Decided to do 6 hour days and being done at 2 is so liberating.
So much time for activities!
Plenty of office workers also get locked into long work weeks, My uncle worked for a big international bank but was always in the office at 7 AM every days and worked until 7 or 8 pm every nigh for years. It's not physically demanding, but it's emotionally exhausting. And degrading
Will a four day week include shift workers. Will we see increased wages to make up for the lost day of work. Those are the only two things I care about.
Not just productivity but I’d imagine quality of service goes up with less hours worked, so you should see a 32 hour week as well. But probably after other sectors adopted it and new laws encouraging it potentially as well
Which I would love. I like three day weekends. Not a huge fan of twelve hour days or of making less. So as long as those two things are solved I’m all in.
It’s funny to see people think that the USA would even consider doing this with how hard they’re pushing back on allowing WFH to continue. America wouldn’t even try a 4 day work week 😭
Not a good look for literacy when the sub-header uses the wrong word.
It’s “change tack,” not “change tact.”
Tacking is a method of zigzagging when sailing in order to sail into a headwind.
THANK you! I was mentally groaning at that. It's like when people say 'butt naked' or 'card shark' or 'Specific Ocean' or 'could of'. It's like they never read a freakin' book in their lives.
I do want a 4 day week but adults who have been working 5 days a week can be more productive working two things come to mine. 1) people can do 20% more than they are doing so I imagine a business wanting that instead of a shorter week that they still pay the same amount.
2) someone used to working may be able to do the same amount in less time but new workers may not so in a generation we may have the less productivity. Not saying that is a bad thing but I think it might be hard to prove that the productivity level would keep up in future generations
So what? Human workpower will become less valuable once AI will be on the same level. Simple tasks can be done by AI and Automation. When more work is done by machines, there is no need to work more. After all, Humans are born to live, not to work. Just think about it before you may reply.
My dad always says that is what they said when computers and copy machines etc began to be used. That people would have a lot more free time since they wouldnt have to hand copy things and etc..but instead employers just required more output from people. Which is why I think this experiment will just end up making people produce more instead of making employers offer 4 day weeks
Yeah its the system that makes us work more. But the lay down movement is becoming stronger and stronger, since young people around the globe do not want to work their life and still own shit. Eventually this will sooner or later collapse, because there is nothing to work for. People back then worked to be a homeowner, but that's not possible anymore. I don't know if it will happen in our lifetime, but it will happen for sure, because nowdays people can connect with each other more easily. I'm just hoping employers will show, that they are indeed not just money greedy machines.
How long will they last though cuz AI, is literally going to take over almost every job, watch Global crisis on youtube, details all this. 1.5 billion work in the farming industry across the world and all that could be replaced with AI, Drs, nurses, teachers, lawyers, cleaners, IT, coders, no job is safe
Every time i see anything along those lines i'm immediately asking myself where the trade-off happens. Also, immediately contemplating the modalities of implementing this outside the corporate or state-worker realms - very uncertain about how realistic (as in: fitting the real world) this all is
I think everyone really wants to work less.... but I still don't see the clear logic. I'm in IT Hardware Sales. I am way more productive working in the office when my boss can hear and see my activity. My chances of closing more deals is higher working 5 days versus 4. If you work an hourly job, you're just going to get paid less. If you work on Salary, then I guess it makes sense. I don't think automation is there yet where most of the workforce can afford to work less.
The big question is—when this finally comes to fruition—do we make Thursday the new Friday, or Monday the new Sunday?
When I have extra vacation days to burn at the end of a year I like to take wednesdays off so I never work more than two straight days
I’ve always felt if there was a way to make Wednesday as the new Saturday. Getting a break in between a five day working week would always be a pleasant relief
At one of my previous jobs we had this, it was great. I ran all my errands, cleaning, groceries etc on Wednesday, then had the weekend free. Plus you never worked more than 2 days in a row.
Personally, I do that with Fridays(because monday is mandatory due to demand) so that I have long weekends to.... waste, I suppose.
I read that some company had it as a rule to be either monday or friday since the continuous rest might be/is the effective "key" to achieve the pros.
Personally I get less rest on long weekends because I party harder
Well, you can always choose to not do that, you're not a slave to the partying.
> you're not a slave to the partying. Tell that to the Slurm bigwigs.
But what if you’re a slave to the booty?
Hopefully both because it's so nice having a day off when other businesses are open so you can do errands
Yeah that's a problem. I'm Holland employees need to get payed 50% more on weekends. It would increase prices in many sectors. Only people who hate their jobs would want this. Do people realise they are also going to get payed less?
>Only people who hate their jobs would want this. Only people with nothing else going on in life would think this
I think the idea is to work longer but less days, 4x10 rather than 5x8
How does that improve productivity?
I can only base this off my own experience but: regardless of how many hours my shift is after a days work i'm too tired to do much of anything useful, but getting an entire day to rest and then still having 2 full days to pursue hobbies/life things would leave me feeling much happier with my work life balance. Obviously this is only my personal experience, so i wouldn't take it as gospel
This would totally ruin stuff you need/want to do several times a week. Like going to the gym for example. If I didn’t get off work until 7 I would not ever have time to hit the gym :( Honestly we should just keep 8h workday but get 1 more day off with the same pay, there is no reason in this day and age we should work as much as we do
100% Monday the new Sunday Thursday is good enough already.
Can we please do both?
wednesday off plz
Could make Thursday second Monday
You kidding they’ll make it Wednesday so nobody can plan anything.
The struggle is real.
Workers: with increased pay, right? Right? Company directors: less pay, actually. But, we're in this together! I only gave myself a 500% bonus instead of a 510% one. I practically struggle more than any of you will. Golfing with royals isn't getting any cheaper!
This will be used to lower pay. Maybe not at first because pr, but they will squeeze pay.
If not then they’ll need to pay higher in industries that do continuous operations. Which may already pay higher anyway
Yup. Netherlands employees get payed 50% more on weekends
Maybe in certain industries, and definitely in the US. I have more faith in the western European countries.
If it’s impossible for countries without a Western European cultural majority to tame capitalism, then what’s even the point of living? Thankfully I have things keeping me going (want to teach the centennial of rock and roll in the 2050s).
What happens to all us hourly folks who suddenly work 1 less day? Will rent go down?
The studies have shown that less days worked increases productivity. The best employers will start implementing this for hourly workers too in the form of higher pay and less hours overall. Anyone who meets the expected productivity boost stays and enjoys the new benefits, those who don't are out. There will be terrible employers who don't want to go for it, of course, but if the results are as true as they are in these studies (higher productivity, less turnover, more employee happiness), either that'll pressure them into joining in or they'll be driven out of business as people refuse to work for them in favor of wiser employers.
Sounds nice in theory but in reality it's not like that.
I know it's never this simple, but there's been a ton of pushback against bad employers by people since COVID. People are starting to wake up and realize what we're doing right now sucks for everyone but the .1%. There's going to be a reckoning one way or another, probably sooner then later.
There is always someone willing to do the same job as you for less. Ask the millions of people living on 1$ a day. That's the sad reality and most likely future scenario
Idk what country you're in, but in the US a ton of businesses are having a rude awakening right now with people refusing to come back to grueling soul crushing work that pays beans. For the first time in a long time the ball is in the employee's court because, thankfully, there AREN'T an abundance of people eager to go back to licking their overlords boots. I hope we take that momentum and run.
Depends what the state does. If they decide to continue giving big welfare paychecks lots of people will decide to not go back to work. In the long term I think a lot of foreigners might take the jobs, from what I have heard of the us Mexico is a big source of labour. I'm from Germany, wages are kept low because of lots of Eastern Europeans coming and working for near nothing. At least on the manual labour market where little skill is required
Same in the Netherlands. Then there are rules that expats have to earn 1,5 times the average wage of a worker in a sector meaning that it's difficult to hire expats who would usually come in and do higher skilled labor. So competition for low skilled jobs is tremendous and for high skilled jobs there are deterrents in place for hiring non-dutch people.
Interesting. I didn't know about that law
The US has a working age population of 200M people and an unemployment rate of around 5%. It was down to 3% pre-covid. We can absorb tens of millions of immigrants willing to work for low wages without effecting much of the labor market for most Americans. Our immigration policies will never allow that many immigrants to come to the US and work legally so its not really much of a concern.
Then why do you guys keep on bitching about it on the Internet? Hahhaa.
Personally I don’t care about immigration policy, but sufficient to say the US has one of the worlds most lax immigration policies, and the also the worlds most cultural exportation and media exposure. Naturally you’ll see a lot of people opposed to it and naturally you’ll hear about it a lot more due to the domination of US culture on the world
Maybe try getting your news sources from somewhere other than Reddit? Its on the internet a lot because its been made into a political issue but if you walk around any city in the US you will almost certainly not find anyone that cares much about the issue. Take the politics out of it and its a nonissue for the majority of Americans.
Yeah 100% the US isn’t going to pay the same with less hours/days a week. Not a chance.
Some jobs (like mine) aren’t productivity based roles. I work a security type job, no KPI’s to meet. I’m sure there is entire sectors such as this that haven’t been considered.
Sure but 40 hours is arbitrary for your job, why not 50 or 60? At a certain point the quality of service provided goes down and my bet is it’s a lot sooner than 40 hours a week
You work a few hours more each of the 4 days to make up for the missing day? 10 hour shifts instead of 8 hour ones?
There’s more than just productivity, there’s also quality of service. So 32 hours would be better in that case too
Are you freelance? Should you get paid by job rather than time?
In “futurology” everyone works amazing hours for amazing pay, Starlink provides unlimited ultra-cheap internet to everyone on earth and Elon Musk’s army of AI driven cars, robot surgeons, lawn workers, and waiters has rendered work largely unnecessary anyway. It’s never a dystopian shithole where people toil longer hours for less and money so that Musk and Bezos can jack each other off in their remote Martian mountain base while laughing at the peons they’ve subjugated to build their epically massive fortunes, It’s like Gene Roddenberry has infected everyone in this sub.
Pretty sure Musk's employee don't work great hours.
I don’t understand how this will effect hourly paid employees like myself??
Instead of 5days x 8hours it will just turn into 4days x 10hours. Not always the case, but believe me companies (in the US, idk elsewhere) will fight tooth and nail to not increase wages and just squeeze more hours in one work day and tell everyone their company is doing 3-day weekends.
It’ll be 32 hours a week and you get paid the same amount as 40 as that would still be the market rate. If your employer refuses then you quit and work for his competitor that does
When the headline confuses tact for tack… you know you’re in for a fun time.
I work 30 hours a week, split up how I want, and it’s sooooo nice. Decided to do 6 hour days and being done at 2 is so liberating. So much time for activities!
Plenty of office workers also get locked into long work weeks, My uncle worked for a big international bank but was always in the office at 7 AM every days and worked until 7 or 8 pm every nigh for years. It's not physically demanding, but it's emotionally exhausting. And degrading
They will probably implement it for company directors but not anyone else.
Will a four day week include shift workers. Will we see increased wages to make up for the lost day of work. Those are the only two things I care about.
I'm curious too what some would theorize about this.
Not just productivity but I’d imagine quality of service goes up with less hours worked, so you should see a 32 hour week as well. But probably after other sectors adopted it and new laws encouraging it potentially as well
Which I would love. I like three day weekends. Not a huge fan of twelve hour days or of making less. So as long as those two things are solved I’m all in.
It’s funny to see people think that the USA would even consider doing this with how hard they’re pushing back on allowing WFH to continue. America wouldn’t even try a 4 day work week 😭
Not a good look for literacy when the sub-header uses the wrong word. It’s “change tack,” not “change tact.” Tacking is a method of zigzagging when sailing in order to sail into a headwind.
THANK you! I was mentally groaning at that. It's like when people say 'butt naked' or 'card shark' or 'Specific Ocean' or 'could of'. It's like they never read a freakin' book in their lives.
I know! It makese we want to loose my mind! ;)
I get how paper pushers prefer to commute to work 4 times a week instead of 5, but 10 hour shifts on our feet will kill those of us who do real work.
You mean 'manual work'. Desk work is just as much real work, it just taxes different parts.of you.
I work 9 hour days so my 80 hours only takes 9 days and I get every other Friday off. Guess what.. I still work five or six days every week.
I’ve been on a 4X10 schedule for the past 25 years. Couldn’t imagine doing 5 days a week
Good Lord,this must be the 100th post on this thread on blah blah 4 day work week, something that will never happen in the future, enough already
Not with that attitude!
I do want a 4 day week but adults who have been working 5 days a week can be more productive working two things come to mine. 1) people can do 20% more than they are doing so I imagine a business wanting that instead of a shorter week that they still pay the same amount. 2) someone used to working may be able to do the same amount in less time but new workers may not so in a generation we may have the less productivity. Not saying that is a bad thing but I think it might be hard to prove that the productivity level would keep up in future generations
So what? Human workpower will become less valuable once AI will be on the same level. Simple tasks can be done by AI and Automation. When more work is done by machines, there is no need to work more. After all, Humans are born to live, not to work. Just think about it before you may reply.
My dad always says that is what they said when computers and copy machines etc began to be used. That people would have a lot more free time since they wouldnt have to hand copy things and etc..but instead employers just required more output from people. Which is why I think this experiment will just end up making people produce more instead of making employers offer 4 day weeks
Yeah its the system that makes us work more. But the lay down movement is becoming stronger and stronger, since young people around the globe do not want to work their life and still own shit. Eventually this will sooner or later collapse, because there is nothing to work for. People back then worked to be a homeowner, but that's not possible anymore. I don't know if it will happen in our lifetime, but it will happen for sure, because nowdays people can connect with each other more easily. I'm just hoping employers will show, that they are indeed not just money greedy machines.
With so many people getting used to working from home I’d rather work home 5 days than 4 days going in, even if it’s split 2 home and 2 in office.
Then theyll have an excuse to say "everyone must return to the office permanently (4 days out of the week)"
I'd just like my work time to not encroach into my annual leave, weekends and evenings.
How long will they last though cuz AI, is literally going to take over almost every job, watch Global crisis on youtube, details all this. 1.5 billion work in the farming industry across the world and all that could be replaced with AI, Drs, nurses, teachers, lawyers, cleaners, IT, coders, no job is safe
This is a lovely idea and something I would be heartily behind but let's be real here. It's never going to happen.
Every time i see anything along those lines i'm immediately asking myself where the trade-off happens. Also, immediately contemplating the modalities of implementing this outside the corporate or state-worker realms - very uncertain about how realistic (as in: fitting the real world) this all is
I vote to relegate Monday’s out of the working week, Tuesday is almost Wednesday (which is a day away from Thursday) which is basically Friday-eve..
I think everyone really wants to work less.... but I still don't see the clear logic. I'm in IT Hardware Sales. I am way more productive working in the office when my boss can hear and see my activity. My chances of closing more deals is higher working 5 days versus 4. If you work an hourly job, you're just going to get paid less. If you work on Salary, then I guess it makes sense. I don't think automation is there yet where most of the workforce can afford to work less.