5 ms·

What if people with jobs worked less ?

jokoon 10y ago
They will be paid less. Ultimately a company hire more people and it's harder to havve more workers for the same amount of work. In france we have a 35h per week system, it's a basis but it's not really ideal either, many companies need to use "heure supplementaires" but they cost more.
adrianN 10y ago
1) Why would you pay them the same for less work? 2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all?
- akerro 10y ago
  >2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all? Because we need a point in our lives, otherwise we will make up some gods and start killing each other. Jobs keep us busy, keep revolts down. Most frustrated and aggressive people are those without jobs and daily schedules.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
    True in theory, but Spain has been in a state of mass unemployment (>20% unemployment rate, >40% youth unemployment rate) since 2010, and it still is among the top 25 safest countries in the world ( http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/safest-countries-in-the-world.html http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/safest-countries-in-the-w... ). Portugal has been over 13% unemployment rate since 2011, and it's the 5th country in the world by that same index.
    - Clubber 10y ago
      I would imagine they have much better social safety nets than in the US. In the US, if you are unable to work, for whatever reason, you are pretty much on your own.
      - akerro 10y ago
        Watch a movie "Where to invade next". EU countries where designed completely differently, in some countries welfare takes more than 60% of taxes.
      - Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
        Sure, but the point in the comment I replied to was that we need to keep people busy (not only with their material needs covered) to avoid violence and revolts. The case of Spain or Portugal seems to tell us that as long as people have basic needs covered, they don't necessarily fight or revolt much.
        Clubber 10y ago
        Yes, you can keep plenty busy with things that don't pay. Art, traveling, gardening, exercising, etc. In fact, most of those things get pushed aside when people work.
- ianleeclark 10y ago
  2) Comparative advantage
formula1 10y ago
You think through the eyes of idealism. Consider this You are the owner of a fortune 500 company You need to hire enough people to fullfill 1600 hours a day, 14 days per paycheck. You want to hire the people as cheaply as possible. If the individual knows they only have to work 20 hrs per week to survive, they have the power to negotiate. If the individual believes that they have to work two jobs for 60 hrs per week to survive, the company has the power to negotiate. Why would you pay more money for same value and less negotiation power? In your ideal world there are enough starving/superficial/ambitious people that you can pay pennies for exponential growth.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Sorry, I don't understand your point in the historical context. Original labour conditions in factories were horrible. The conditions did not improve through economic rationalization but because society recognized it as wrong and forced factory owners to employ better working conditions.
  - formula1 10y ago
    Its slso possible they werent sustainable. Worker strikes snd unions will definitely put a hamper on your production. If people cant support children or they know a job is a death sentence, when an opening comes up due to a strike they may not be too eager to work
    - fsloth 10y ago
      Yes, I trivialized a complex social evolution on my comment to make the point that labour conditions were not changed simply because it made sense economically in the factory owner's yearly budgeting. The main driving factor was recognition from all around that the labour conditions needed to change for ethical reasons, and the factory owners had to acquiesce to the demands of the society.
      - formula1 10y ago
        Are you talking about the gov? If thats the case, you should look into the history in regards to unions and unethical labor practice. I think it was this year that a whistleblower revealed that lithium was being mined by children. I appreciate you think we have "evolved" but really we just wear better masks
humanrebar 10y ago
For jobs where 40 hours per week has basically the same productivity as 30 hours per week, that's fine. For jobs where context is important (medicine, software), 'working less' will cause a disproportionate hit to productivity. Some problems you can't throw more people at. That's more or less the thesis of the Mythical Man-Month, and it applies to many careers. Though there are probably plenty of careers (like driving trucks, certain kinds of teaching) where you can lighten the work load and hire more.
- sverige 10y ago
  No, you can't lighten the work load for trucking (without automation). Over the road truck driving doesn't benefit from reducing hours and hiring more, since OTR drivers basically live in their trucks for three or four weeks at a time to maximize flexibility in moving freight. You would need more trucks to accomplish that, and there's already a driver shortage since there aren't enough Millenials willing to do the job. The other thing is that driver pay has declined considerably over the past 25 years (stagnant since the early 90s, minus inflation), so it would cost trucking companies more (more trucks, more drivers) while decreasing wages for individual drivers. OTR truck drivers are paid by the mile. Third, the increased costs for moving freight would end up increasing the costs to consumers for all goods moved by trucks, which is pretty much everything.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    > Over the road truck driving doesn't benefit from reducing hours and hiring more, since OTR drivers basically live in their trucks for three or four weeks at a time to maximize flexibility in moving freight. So give them three weeks on, three weeks off. Or have them drive shorter runs, handing trailers off to other trucks for 'long hauls'. To your other points, I wasn't commenting on the economics of pay levels for truck drivers. I was saying if everyone was happy with the wages, some tasks (leaving the concept of 'a job' to the side) can certainly be divvied up among more workers without a major loss in productivity... The only objection I could see to that hypothesis is that there's a shortage in the natural talent pool so that there aren't enough workers to allow a shorter work week. Maybe there aren't enough patient, healthy, and alert people (or whatever the other qualities of a good trucker are) to handle three times more truckers working one-third as much. That's an empirical question at the end of the day. With that in mind, it seems unlikely to me that makes sense to have three times more brain surgeons working one third as much.

They will be paid less. Ultimately a company hire more people and it's harder to havve more workers for the same amount of work. In france we have a 35h per week system, it's a basis but it's not really ideal either, many companies need to use "heure supplementaires" but they cost more.

adrianN 10y ago

1) Why would you pay them the same for less work? 2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all?

akerro 10y ago
>2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all? Because we need a point in our lives, otherwise we will make up some gods and start killing each other. Jobs keep us busy, keep revolts down. Most frustrated and aggressive people are those without jobs and daily schedules.
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
  True in theory, but Spain has been in a state of mass unemployment (>20% unemployment rate, >40% youth unemployment rate) since 2010, and it still is among the top 25 safest countries in the world ( http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/safest-countries-in-the-world.html http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/safest-countries-in-the-w... ). Portugal has been over 13% unemployment rate since 2011, and it's the 5th country in the world by that same index.
  - Clubber 10y ago
    I would imagine they have much better social safety nets than in the US. In the US, if you are unable to work, for whatever reason, you are pretty much on your own.
    - akerro 10y ago
      Watch a movie "Where to invade next". EU countries where designed completely differently, in some countries welfare takes more than 60% of taxes.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
      Sure, but the point in the comment I replied to was that we need to keep people busy (not only with their material needs covered) to avoid violence and revolts. The case of Spain or Portugal seems to tell us that as long as people have basic needs covered, they don't necessarily fight or revolt much.
      - Clubber 10y ago
        Yes, you can keep plenty busy with things that don't pay. Art, traveling, gardening, exercising, etc. In fact, most of those things get pushed aside when people work.
ianleeclark 10y ago
2) Comparative advantage

formula1 10y ago

You think through the eyes of idealism. Consider this You are the owner of a fortune 500 company You need to hire enough people to fullfill 1600 hours a day, 14 days per paycheck. You want to hire the people as cheaply as possible. If the individual knows they only have to work 20 hrs per week to survive, they have the power to negotiate. If the individual believes that they have to work two jobs for 60 hrs per week to survive, the company has the power to negotiate. Why would you pay more money for same value and less negotiation power? In your ideal world there are enough starving/superficial/ambitious people that you can pay pennies for exponential growth.

fsloth 10y ago
Sorry, I don't understand your point in the historical context. Original labour conditions in factories were horrible. The conditions did not improve through economic rationalization but because society recognized it as wrong and forced factory owners to employ better working conditions.
- formula1 10y ago
  Its slso possible they werent sustainable. Worker strikes snd unions will definitely put a hamper on your production. If people cant support children or they know a job is a death sentence, when an opening comes up due to a strike they may not be too eager to work
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Yes, I trivialized a complex social evolution on my comment to make the point that labour conditions were not changed simply because it made sense economically in the factory owner's yearly budgeting. The main driving factor was recognition from all around that the labour conditions needed to change for ethical reasons, and the factory owners had to acquiesce to the demands of the society.
    - formula1 10y ago
      Are you talking about the gov? If thats the case, you should look into the history in regards to unions and unethical labor practice. I think it was this year that a whistleblower revealed that lithium was being mined by children. I appreciate you think we have "evolved" but really we just wear better masks

humanrebar 10y ago

For jobs where 40 hours per week has basically the same productivity as 30 hours per week, that's fine. For jobs where context is important (medicine, software), 'working less' will cause a disproportionate hit to productivity. Some problems you can't throw more people at. That's more or less the thesis of the Mythical Man-Month, and it applies to many careers. Though there are probably plenty of careers (like driving trucks, certain kinds of teaching) where you can lighten the work load and hire more.

sverige 10y ago
No, you can't lighten the work load for trucking (without automation). Over the road truck driving doesn't benefit from reducing hours and hiring more, since OTR drivers basically live in their trucks for three or four weeks at a time to maximize flexibility in moving freight. You would need more trucks to accomplish that, and there's already a driver shortage since there aren't enough Millenials willing to do the job. The other thing is that driver pay has declined considerably over the past 25 years (stagnant since the early 90s, minus inflation), so it would cost trucking companies more (more trucks, more drivers) while decreasing wages for individual drivers. OTR truck drivers are paid by the mile. Third, the increased costs for moving freight would end up increasing the costs to consumers for all goods moved by trucks, which is pretty much everything.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > Over the road truck driving doesn't benefit from reducing hours and hiring more, since OTR drivers basically live in their trucks for three or four weeks at a time to maximize flexibility in moving freight. So give them three weeks on, three weeks off. Or have them drive shorter runs, handing trailers off to other trucks for 'long hauls'. To your other points, I wasn't commenting on the economics of pay levels for truck drivers. I was saying if everyone was happy with the wages, some tasks (leaving the concept of 'a job' to the side) can certainly be divvied up among more workers without a major loss in productivity... The only objection I could see to that hypothesis is that there's a shortage in the natural talent pool so that there aren't enough workers to allow a shorter work week. Maybe there aren't enough patient, healthy, and alert people (or whatever the other qualities of a good trucker are) to handle three times more truckers working one-third as much. That's an empirical question at the end of the day. With that in mind, it seems unlikely to me that makes sense to have three times more brain surgeons working one third as much.