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As a swede I think the title is highly misleading. Sweden is not shifting to a 6-hour workday. Sure there are a few experiments but the baseline is that sweden

by jontro 11y ago

As a swede I think the title is highly misleading. Sweden is not shifting to a 6-hour workday. Sure there are a few experiments but the baseline is that sweden (which has a huge public sector) cannot afford it without raising taxes further. The current forecasts for the future indicates that taxes has to be raised a lot just to maintain the current standard. I would be very surprised if the 6 hour workday would be prominent here in the future.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 11y ago
You're assuming a 1:1 ratio between time and productivity, which is just not the case for a lot of jobs. In a customer-facing job well yeah, you need people to operate the business as long as the doors are open. But many offices could run from 10am-5pm or 8am-3pm without seriously impacting productivity.
- jontro 11y ago
  I'm not against the idea. Was just pointing out that Sweden in general is not moving towards this. Not a single political party is actively driving the 35 hour line which was in the talks a decade ago.
  - asdfologist 11y ago
    But you said they'd have to raise taxes, which directly implies that you think it would hurt productivity.
    - e12e 11y ago
      He(?) said: > Sure there are a few experiments but the baseline is that sweden (which has a huge public sector) cannot afford it without raising taxes further. The general idea is that while you might just kick office workers out the door 2 hours early, and not see a drop in what the actually get done (and there are a lot of office workers in the public sector) - in other areas, notably healthcare (and also Miletary, Police, Search&Rescue, Firefighting, Child protective services ... and to a certain extent education) you need to have a certain number of people on at any given time. Like-for-like that means changing from 38 hours to 46 (although it's not that simple, as schedules tend to overlap, and there's probably at least double the people working during daylight hours). If you pay them all the same, you have a ~15-20% (guesstimate) pay and pension cost increase (along with a similar increase in income tax, but as no one pays 100% income tax that won't cover the new positions). Being Norwegian, I don't have that much of an idea about Swedish government finances, but it sounds reasonable that the public sector would probably need more staff if moving to 6 hours. There'd probably be many benefits, eg: lower percentage of sick leave, early retirement due to health issues etc -- but it's not inconceivable that it would be overall more expensive. I think it would be worth it -- but that's a different discussion.
      - aianus 11y ago
        Why would you pay them the same? Hire 14% more workers, work them 35h instead of 40h, and pay them 14% less each. Costs the same, doesn't it?
        e12e 11y ago
        How will they afford housing? Pay their student loans? Buy food? Besides, if they generate the same value - why would you pay them less?
        aianus 11y ago
        Every full-time job I've ever had in the US paid very well but there was no time to spend any of it because I was at work all the time. Anyways, if your budget is that tight an extra 6 hours a week would let you live further from work / drive an uber / cook more / whatever to fill in the gaps. > Besides, if they generate the same value - why would you pay them less? The parent to my comment was referring to shift work like nurses where you can't generate the same value in less time -- somebody has to be there.
        riffraff 11y ago
        Many people will not be happy to get a 14% wage cut, and would prefer working longer. Also, firms have a tendency to just require people to work harder/overtime rather than hiring more. Finally, retirement benefits decrease if they are awarded based on how much income taxes you payed, which not everyone is comfortable with. That is why projects to have a legal 35 hours week usually have extra stuff attached to them, such as integration from special government funds.
        e12e 11y ago
        [W]hen the normal is that both adults in a household works, that's a [ed: 28%] pay cut (or a 72% increase, if one goes down to 6 hour workday, and the other one gets a job as a result of the introduction of a six hour work day). In the context of the public sector, one is mostly shuffling money around (welfare vs pay/pension) -- but with tangible health effects: for better or worse, very simply, people are generally better off if they have a job, if the job isn't too hard for them (social aspects of having co-workers, sense of worth etc). I'm not sure about Sweden, but Norway in practice (through union regulation) have a 37.5 hour work week. And a six-hour day then means 30 hour week. Some sectors do have a 40 hour work week (8 * 5), but also here six hour day, would generally mean 30 hour week. In Norway hourly compensation is still not the norm (except for overtime) - nominal hourly wage is based on a yearly pay divided by 1950 hours (37.5 * 52 - including holyday pay). I think the idea of paying people per hour worked is flawed in general, even if it seems good on the surface. You pay people to be an employee, to use their skills to help a business or organization succeed. I don't think you can often gauge a persons value by hours worked, and it makes for odd incentives (eg: you get paid more, the slower you work). Again from the perspective of the public sector, I think, in general, that one wants people to have a "full time" job, and pay taxes accordingly -- which implies they should be paid accordingly. That is part of the premise of a six hour work day -- that you can get "a days work" done in six hours, that working more isn't really good for you or your employer in general. Things like sick leave, efficiency when at work, years of a life that can be spent working -- all points towards six hours making more sense than eight. We probably do need more data -- we have much more experience with eight hour days/40 hour weeks than with six hour days. I also think it's important to avid the "one size fits all trap" -- not all work is the same. But that also means that just because Ford thought 8 hours was great for factory workers, it might not be the best model for most modern work.
xlm1717 11y ago
As an American, I'm interested in knowing why it would require Sweden to raise taxes. Since you mentioned a huge public sector, is it a case of needing extra workers to work shifts so that pubic services are run at the usual hours? I imagine private companies would be able to get away with it, as long as all their competitors also switch to six-hour workdays.
- jontro 11y ago
  From just a quick googling around I've seen estimated costs for a 30 hour work-week the public budget between 86 [1] - 236 [2] billion SEK/year. The total budget last year year was 862 billion. Somewhere that money has to come from Some Swedish links about it: [1]: http://www.etc.se/inrikes/sa-tycker-oppositionen-om-sextimmarsdagen http://www.etc.se/inrikes/sa-tycker-oppositionen-om-sextimma... [2]: http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/sa-mycket-kostar-fis-forslag-att-genomfora/ http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/sa-mycket-kostar-fis...
  - jontro 11y ago
    Here's some more facts about the public sector. Translated from: http://www.scb.se/Statistik/_Publikationer/OE0903_2014A01_BR_OE06BR1401.pdf http://www.scb.se/Statistik/_Publikationer/OE0903_2014A01_BR... Different measures of government size, 2012. Percentage of GDP. Public authorities' share of the total value added: 18% Public sector consumption and investments: 30% Employed in the public sector: 28% Employed in the public sector and public enterprises 33% General government expenditure 51% General government revenue 50%
- Skinney 11y ago
  I'm Norwegian, and here we have two parties who advocate a six-hour workday. One of the parties wants a six-hour workday with pay compensation, meaning we still pay them for eight-hour days even if they only work six-hours. I'm not sure this is the case in Sweden. Even if it isn't, a six-hour day means people work less, meaning you probably need to hire more people (increased productivity doesn't help in the healthcare, police or fire sector, you still need people at work) which means higher pensions and other benefits.
venomsnake 11y ago
Since real productive time of programmers is 2 hours daily and probably for managers is 10-20 minutes, we could cut a lot of dead stuff in IT and don't suffer productivity drop. May differ in other situations.
- h199158 11y ago
  Indeed, this wouldn't work in the low wage sector.

by jontro 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

anigbrowl 11y ago

You're assuming a 1:1 ratio between time and productivity, which is just not the case for a lot of jobs. In a customer-facing job well yeah, you need people to operate the business as long as the doors are open. But many offices could run from 10am-5pm or 8am-3pm without seriously impacting productivity.

jontro 11y ago
I'm not against the idea. Was just pointing out that Sweden in general is not moving towards this. Not a single political party is actively driving the 35 hour line which was in the talks a decade ago.
- asdfologist 11y ago
  But you said they'd have to raise taxes, which directly implies that you think it would hurt productivity.
  - e12e 11y ago
    He(?) said: > Sure there are a few experiments but the baseline is that sweden (which has a huge public sector) cannot afford it without raising taxes further. The general idea is that while you might just kick office workers out the door 2 hours early, and not see a drop in what the actually get done (and there are a lot of office workers in the public sector) - in other areas, notably healthcare (and also Miletary, Police, Search&Rescue, Firefighting, Child protective services ... and to a certain extent education) you need to have a certain number of people on at any given time. Like-for-like that means changing from 38 hours to 46 (although it's not that simple, as schedules tend to overlap, and there's probably at least double the people working during daylight hours). If you pay them all the same, you have a ~15-20% (guesstimate) pay and pension cost increase (along with a similar increase in income tax, but as no one pays 100% income tax that won't cover the new positions). Being Norwegian, I don't have that much of an idea about Swedish government finances, but it sounds reasonable that the public sector would probably need more staff if moving to 6 hours. There'd probably be many benefits, eg: lower percentage of sick leave, early retirement due to health issues etc -- but it's not inconceivable that it would be overall more expensive. I think it would be worth it -- but that's a different discussion.
    - aianus 11y ago
      Why would you pay them the same? Hire 14% more workers, work them 35h instead of 40h, and pay them 14% less each. Costs the same, doesn't it?
      - e12e 11y ago
        How will they afford housing? Pay their student loans? Buy food? Besides, if they generate the same value - why would you pay them less?
        aianus 11y ago
        Every full-time job I've ever had in the US paid very well but there was no time to spend any of it because I was at work all the time. Anyways, if your budget is that tight an extra 6 hours a week would let you live further from work / drive an uber / cook more / whatever to fill in the gaps. > Besides, if they generate the same value - why would you pay them less? The parent to my comment was referring to shift work like nurses where you can't generate the same value in less time -- somebody has to be there.
      - riffraff 11y ago
        Many people will not be happy to get a 14% wage cut, and would prefer working longer. Also, firms have a tendency to just require people to work harder/overtime rather than hiring more. Finally, retirement benefits decrease if they are awarded based on how much income taxes you payed, which not everyone is comfortable with. That is why projects to have a legal 35 hours week usually have extra stuff attached to them, such as integration from special government funds.
        e12e 11y ago
        [W]hen the normal is that both adults in a household works, that's a [ed: 28%] pay cut (or a 72% increase, if one goes down to 6 hour workday, and the other one gets a job as a result of the introduction of a six hour work day). In the context of the public sector, one is mostly shuffling money around (welfare vs pay/pension) -- but with tangible health effects: for better or worse, very simply, people are generally better off if they have a job, if the job isn't too hard for them (social aspects of having co-workers, sense of worth etc). I'm not sure about Sweden, but Norway in practice (through union regulation) have a 37.5 hour work week. And a six-hour day then means 30 hour week. Some sectors do have a 40 hour work week (8 * 5), but also here six hour day, would generally mean 30 hour week. In Norway hourly compensation is still not the norm (except for overtime) - nominal hourly wage is based on a yearly pay divided by 1950 hours (37.5 * 52 - including holyday pay). I think the idea of paying people per hour worked is flawed in general, even if it seems good on the surface. You pay people to be an employee, to use their skills to help a business or organization succeed. I don't think you can often gauge a persons value by hours worked, and it makes for odd incentives (eg: you get paid more, the slower you work). Again from the perspective of the public sector, I think, in general, that one wants people to have a "full time" job, and pay taxes accordingly -- which implies they should be paid accordingly. That is part of the premise of a six hour work day -- that you can get "a days work" done in six hours, that working more isn't really good for you or your employer in general. Things like sick leave, efficiency when at work, years of a life that can be spent working -- all points towards six hours making more sense than eight. We probably do need more data -- we have much more experience with eight hour days/40 hour weeks than with six hour days. I also think it's important to avid the "one size fits all trap" -- not all work is the same. But that also means that just because Ford thought 8 hours was great for factory workers, it might not be the best model for most modern work.

xlm1717 11y ago

As an American, I'm interested in knowing why it would require Sweden to raise taxes. Since you mentioned a huge public sector, is it a case of needing extra workers to work shifts so that pubic services are run at the usual hours? I imagine private companies would be able to get away with it, as long as all their competitors also switch to six-hour workdays.

jontro 11y ago
From just a quick googling around I've seen estimated costs for a 30 hour work-week the public budget between 86 [1] - 236 [2] billion SEK/year. The total budget last year year was 862 billion. Somewhere that money has to come from Some Swedish links about it: [1]: http://www.etc.se/inrikes/sa-tycker-oppositionen-om-sextimmarsdagen http://www.etc.se/inrikes/sa-tycker-oppositionen-om-sextimma... [2]: http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/sa-mycket-kostar-fis-forslag-att-genomfora/ http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/sa-mycket-kostar-fis...
- jontro 11y ago
  Here's some more facts about the public sector. Translated from: http://www.scb.se/Statistik/_Publikationer/OE0903_2014A01_BR_OE06BR1401.pdf http://www.scb.se/Statistik/_Publikationer/OE0903_2014A01_BR... Different measures of government size, 2012. Percentage of GDP. Public authorities' share of the total value added: 18% Public sector consumption and investments: 30% Employed in the public sector: 28% Employed in the public sector and public enterprises 33% General government expenditure 51% General government revenue 50%
Skinney 11y ago
I'm Norwegian, and here we have two parties who advocate a six-hour workday. One of the parties wants a six-hour workday with pay compensation, meaning we still pay them for eight-hour days even if they only work six-hours. I'm not sure this is the case in Sweden. Even if it isn't, a six-hour day means people work less, meaning you probably need to hire more people (increased productivity doesn't help in the healthcare, police or fire sector, you still need people at work) which means higher pensions and other benefits.

venomsnake 11y ago

Since real productive time of programmers is 2 hours daily and probably for managers is 10-20 minutes, we could cut a lot of dead stuff in IT and don't suffer productivity drop. May differ in other situations.

h199158 11y ago
Indeed, this wouldn't work in the low wage sector.