You seemed to miss the point entirely as well. The PM’s suggestion represents a 40% decrease in the labor market. You wouldn’t be able to make up that loss without hiring a whole lot more people, which would put most places out of business. Thinking gains would come from productivity increases, that’s simply not going to happen, as inflation has far outpaced labor productivity for the last 60 years. Finland’s Unemployment rate is roughly 13% currently, so even hiring all of those people to make up for missed labor will not come close to solving the gap.
As normal, great aspirational idea that has zero basis in reality.
That’s not what missing the point means but I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried about the feasibility of this proposal, which is entirely separate from my comment and the comment I was responding to. So to be clear, you’re not actually talking to me or the original commenter, you’re talking at me. Which is fine, we can have this conversation - which is different than what I was discussing - at the same time if you’d like.
Yes, reduction of hours could theoretically means
a larger volume of people are needed to cover those positions. That is likely true in some fields and likely not true in others. As an example, waiters or nurses or teachers would likely need more staff to cover those lost hours as those are services that are often open most days of the week at most hours. We can’t have hospitals closed on Fridays, for instance. So in that case your suggestion is correct.
The element you’re not considering past the simple math of the problem is whether or not we need 40 hours to stay profitable. The counter example to the nurse would be most white collar jobs who reportedly don’t need 40 hours a week to complete their work and be successful. These people are forced to work 40 hours because of cultural expectations but, because of the “productivity” boom of the last century, don’t actually need to work 40 hours. This is the situation that the PM’s suggestion would be most feasible.
If someone can complete their work in 32 hours but is paid to be at their desk for 40, 1 of 2 things happen. (Reminder, this is the expected amount of work to keep the business profitable.) They either notify their boss that they can do more work, and thus increase their responsibilities until it hits 40 hours, which nearly always results in neither higher pay nor higher recognition long term. Or they don’t, and they make what use they can of those 8 hours, which is always less efficient than if they had “free time”. This is where the government, unions, or any regulatory body is necessary for the improvement of society. Businesses of a certain size or profession grow inefficient in using their employees time as their productivity goes up, which again can be converted either into more work and higher sales or more free time and better benefits. (This is ignoring what happens too often which is that extra time gets converted to meaningless meetings and micromanagement and time around the water cooler etc).
So I disagree with you in saying, as a blanket statement derived from napkin math, that the PM’s proposal (which I imagine both of us have just read the title comments on instead of an actual, ready to implement policy proposal) is not based in reality.
Why you seem excited to defend the forced labor hours of the working class is beyond me. Surely you’re not rich, and surely you’d prefer to work less than you do and have the same quality of life. So I have to assume you’re either afraid of someone messing up “the economy” by being too progressive or you’ve taken the conservative propaganda to heart and believe things must only get worse for the working class if the rich are to get richer and therefore through market magic improve everyone else’s lives maybe (trickling down or some other illogical and indirect process). Tell me, if you can be so introspective, why you decided to talk at me. Why do you think something that several studies have shown, at least to my knowledge, to not only be feasible but also beneficial? Why are you against the topic at first mention of societal progress?
You seemed to miss the point entirely as well. The PM’s suggestion represents a 40% decrease in the labor market. You wouldn’t be able to make up that loss without hiring a whole lot more people, which would put most places out of business. Thinking gains would come from productivity increases, that’s simply not going to happen, as inflation has far outpaced labor productivity for the last 60 years. Finland’s Unemployment rate is roughly 13% currently, so even hiring all of those people to make up for missed labor will not come close to solving the gap.
As normal, great aspirational idea that has zero basis in reality.
That’s not what missing the point means but I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried about the feasibility of this proposal, which is entirely separate from my comment and the comment I was responding to. So to be clear, you’re not actually talking to me or the original commenter, you’re talking at me. Which is fine, we can have this conversation - which is different than what I was discussing - at the same time if you’d like.
Yes, reduction of hours could theoretically means a larger volume of people are needed to cover those positions. That is likely true in some fields and likely not true in others. As an example, waiters or nurses or teachers would likely need more staff to cover those lost hours as those are services that are often open most days of the week at most hours. We can’t have hospitals closed on Fridays, for instance. So in that case your suggestion is correct.
The element you’re not considering past the simple math of the problem is whether or not we need 40 hours to stay profitable. The counter example to the nurse would be most white collar jobs who reportedly don’t need 40 hours a week to complete their work and be successful. These people are forced to work 40 hours because of cultural expectations but, because of the “productivity” boom of the last century, don’t actually need to work 40 hours. This is the situation that the PM’s suggestion would be most feasible.
If someone can complete their work in 32 hours but is paid to be at their desk for 40, 1 of 2 things happen. (Reminder, this is the expected amount of work to keep the business profitable.) They either notify their boss that they can do more work, and thus increase their responsibilities until it hits 40 hours, which nearly always results in neither higher pay nor higher recognition long term. Or they don’t, and they make what use they can of those 8 hours, which is always less efficient than if they had “free time”. This is where the government, unions, or any regulatory body is necessary for the improvement of society. Businesses of a certain size or profession grow inefficient in using their employees time as their productivity goes up, which again can be converted either into more work and higher sales or more free time and better benefits. (This is ignoring what happens too often which is that extra time gets converted to meaningless meetings and micromanagement and time around the water cooler etc).
So I disagree with you in saying, as a blanket statement derived from napkin math, that the PM’s proposal (which I imagine both of us have just read the title comments on instead of an actual, ready to implement policy proposal) is not based in reality.
Why you seem excited to defend the forced labor hours of the working class is beyond me. Surely you’re not rich, and surely you’d prefer to work less than you do and have the same quality of life. So I have to assume you’re either afraid of someone messing up “the economy” by being too progressive or you’ve taken the conservative propaganda to heart and believe things must only get worse for the working class if the rich are to get richer and therefore through market magic improve everyone else’s lives maybe (trickling down or some other illogical and indirect process). Tell me, if you can be so introspective, why you decided to talk at me. Why do you think something that several studies have shown, at least to my knowledge, to not only be feasible but also beneficial? Why are you against the topic at first mention of societal progress?