5 ms·

In Sweden, Happiness in a Shorter Workday Can’t Overcome the Cost

48 points by slizard 10y ago

vlasev 10y ago
If we twist things the other way - this shows that you can buy happiness...
slizard 10y ago
Even if it is not found to be acceptable now (which might sadly turn out to be the case even in Sweden), at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay.
- zepto 10y ago
  How will people get similar pay for less work?
  - bencollier49 10y ago
    Deflation?
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    By wishful thinking. (I.e. the theory is that people are so much happier with shorter working hours that they come up with the same productivity. However, with a drop from 8 to 6 hours this doesn't really happen, although the productivity does not drop 25 % as it would without any dynamic effects).
    - saurik 10y ago
      No: you misunderstand this line of thinking, as the goal of this subthread is not to increase efficiency or health but to mitigate unemployment in the wake of automation. The argument is similar to a minumum wage increase, where we pay people more for the same work, and about which you can make the same backhanded complaint; only instead of helping only the people with jobs (as a minimum wage increase doesn't affect you if you do not already have a wage), it brings more people into the job force while having the same effect on the bottom line of businesses (that they are paying more for the same output, only instead of giving more money to one person they are giving that money to more people). The real issues are that it assumes work that scales well to having more people involved and that it breaks the market for low-value work; but the latter issue is the same core problem with mimumum wage increases, and the person who commented with this understands, saying this is only a way to transition a society which refuses to admit basic income as a better solution due to the "welfare state" argument (which is really the same reasonable defense of the minimum wage, as well).
  - pcmaffey 10y ago
    Isn't that the point of technological efficiency? If only that surplus didn't just go to the 1%...
    - adharmad 10y ago
      As a curosity - why should the surplus go to everyone? Shouldn't it go to the initiator of the innovation? The market distinguishes between the users (eg - people using MS Excel or Google search) and the initiators (in this case Microsoft or Google). Put in another way - would people be as efficient if we remove the tool they are using for the increased technological efficiency?
- achamayou 10y ago
  It's been tried elsewhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek), and it's not been a massive success. It certainly hasn't made a dent in the unemployment figures. We may be further from the jobs drying out than we think we are, and humans may have an ability to generate "work" for themselves greater than is generally thought. Among possible explanations anyway, there are surely many more :)
  - user5994461 10y ago
    It was only tried in France. It's a different environment.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      France is not just a trial. It's the current working hours law, since 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek And it hasn't been a massive success, except that employees mostly like it. But the unemployment level is roughly the same 10 % as it was before 2000, and the last time French government did not have budget deficit is still 1974.
      - user5994461 10y ago
        It's the working hours for some jobs.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work. Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to? It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.
  - eslaught 10y ago
    > shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer In the US at least they already do, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. US companies only have to pay benefits for employees to work >= 40 hours/week. So 2 employees working 20 hours/week costs less than 1 employee working 40 hours/week. (Of course this is not beneficial to the employees.)
    - Eridrus 10y ago
      The US has the obvious issue where healthcare is tied to employment and working less hours is mandatory, not voluntary.
  - eropple 10y ago
    > I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work. Because it's the only way to keep the ongoing and increasingly shaky fiction that "we need everybody to work" hanging together? Foolish patches on the status quo, like "pay people more for less work", are the only way forward until we adult up and realize that the welfare state is both inevitable and beneficial (even to the self-anointed "makers" so busily hoisting themselves up on their crosses).
    - chongli 10y ago
      "we need everybody to work" Getting past this fiction is only the beginning. Many, many people find meaning in their lives through performing a task that others deem necessary. When nobody is necessary, the economy decouples from the people. We actually have examples of societies that operate like this right now: Eritrea [0] for one. The government of that country has decided it has no real use for most of its people. It makes business deals with foreign resource extraction companies directly. Many people live in abject poverty while the government enriches itself and does little/nothing to help them. Assuming we do reach a state where we no longer sustain the fiction that we need people to work, the question becomes "How do the unnecessariat [1] justify their own existance to those who control capital?" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea [1] https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/ https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
- adharmad 10y ago
  The problem is that, capital will flee any company that tries this to more efficient competitors. As long as it is a public company, there is no easy way to try this without any repercussions to the stock price. Countries can legislate this, but they will not be able to prevent their economies from stagnating like some of the european countries. (Flight of capital, companies moving their workforce to other places etc.) The only way (as I see it) is if we, as a society accept lesser returns on our investments (via our 401Ks and pension plans) and allow that to be reflected in the compensation and productivity of the workforce. With the increasing life expectancy, even that can turn out to be a problem in the long run, but we cross that bridge when we reach it.....
  - xchaotic 10y ago
    This is very true, it's all noble and such, but for now now markets and investors follow quarterly earnings guidance and most executives are not even allowed to make decisions that improve civilisation - the role of a company is to make money not make everyone happy. Let's work with that as a starting point and not some unrealistic ideas.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Why would they do that instead of doing what they've done until now and accumulating wealth at an accelerating rate? Jobs have been getting less stable for a while already.
- throwaway1X2 10y ago
  "at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay" That doesn't check out. Either working shorter hours will produce the same result. This is true in knowledge workers etc., being more rested and well-being, and cutting on jabbering in the kitchen, you can produce the same net result easily in 5-6 hours a day instead of being overworked, sitting like a zombie for 10 hours. Then, while you pay the same for shorter hours, there will be no incentive to employ new workers, you pay the same, you get the same results, it is only done in shorter hours and pay-per-hour increased, but you don't need more workforce. Or working shorter hours will produce less results. This is true in "mechanical" jobs - e.g., car production lines, or in "overwatch" jobs - e.g., power plant control rooms. Then you will need more workers and have no incentive to pay the same for less results and then pay the same for new workers to make up the results. Yes, you can pay the same numerically for less hours (i.e. when forced by law), but now producing a unit of car, flour, bread, delivering a package from e-shop, programming a feature in software system costs more and the currency will be devalued. So you will work less hours, get the same pay (numerically), but for the same number, you will be able to buy less hours from others (whether it is a product or a service).
raesene9 10y ago
For me, an important takeaway from reading this article was to consider the type of employment they trialled it on. The trial was in a retirement home, which is by design somewhere that needs 24x7 cover. This means that any reduction in hours needs to be covered by more staff, obviously necessitating more expense. What would be far more interesting to me, is a trial on an industry like software development where output isn't measured in number of hours but more in the product created. It would be interesting to see if a reduction in hours negatively or positively affected the quality/quantity of code produced.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Software industry is driven by plenty of workers where work hours equal to output, maybe not development but then in the software industry in many cases development isn't the bulk of the workforce. Sure everyone can be an engineer, I've seen companies that give a title of "customer services engineer" to their phone banks, but at the end support staff which unless you work at a startup can be as high as 80% of the work force does need to be present for as many hours as possible, even 24/7 in many cases.
  - raesene9 10y ago
    sure but I specifically said I was interested in seeing a trial where hours worked doesn't equal output, because that would be an interesting comparison to this trial, didn't make any comment about "the software industry"
inputcoffee 10y ago
The first question we should ask is where does the extra value come from (not money, but value, and you'll see why in a moment). One answer may be automation, and typically, the excess value is passed on to the customer in the form of lower cost. (That's why we ought to talk about value, even if we can't easily measure it). One alternative is not to pass on the value to the customer, but to give it to the workers. You could do this by reducing hours, increasing pay, or some combination. There are two problems with this: 1. You can't do this in an open, market economy. The government could do this with government jobs where they have a monopoly. 2. It is kind of arbitrary that you decide to value this particular worker over this particular consumer. Another solution is to give everyone a basic income with all the extra value (collected as taxes, roughly equally) that automation generates. So the seller might give a discount to the customer but the rest of the value would go to the state. Then people can decide how they want to spend it.
gremlinsinc 10y ago
I think the way forward is some sort of basic income, even if that's just 25% of average salaries across the country, so that then the company can employ MORE people, but make them work 25% less, and pay them 25% less making them happier, healthier, and the gov't picks up the bill for the lost 25% income to the worker... It'd also be a good experiment for gbi in general.
- sethammons 10y ago
  How does the government pick up the bill? They get their money from us via taxes...
  - chinathrow 10y ago
    From us employed or from us running companies with profit, yes.
    - late2part 10y ago
      Why should I work, so that others who don't work get my money?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        Because it leads to a healthy vibrant society that enables you to make that money in the first place. Your income is a benefit conferred by the society in which you live, so it makes sense to return part of it to enable that society to exist.
        late2part 10y ago
        Turtles all the way down?
ascorbic 10y ago
It seems a particularly poor choice of workplace to try this. Care homes need to maintain certain staffing levels, 24 hours a day, so there is a hard limit to the benefits that can be gained from improved productivity.
- hanspragt 10y ago
  I don't think you will shake out the issues if you try it in the easiest place possible.
  - ascorbic 10y ago
    It's not that it's not the easiest place. It's that it's impossible. If you have a minimum required staffing level, there is no scope for savings from increased productivity. They might be able to accomplish all their tasks better in half the time, but they'd still need to pay someone else to be on site for the rest of the time.
    - hanspragt 10y ago
      If impossibility was a foregone conclusion, why try it in the first place? I appluad them for doing the study in this place.
  - civility 10y ago
    You also won't find the value if you try it in the most difficult places.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  In health care, there is a very steep cost that can come from workers who are tired, distracted, overworked, more likely to make a mistake etc. And that's before factoring in lawsuits.
beerbajay 10y ago
This headline is terrible. The issue is not the cost; it's political will even by the social democratic party. As it says in the caption of the main image: > Toyota has been using the shorter workday there for more than a decade. This is typically lazy American reporting when considering different political systems/paradigms.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  No no no. Its not just a matter of political will. Its a question of the type of busuinees and its individual situation. the whole idea that this can be applied generally is whats wrong. Productivity simply doesent work like that. If anything is lazy its the idea that poltical view is all that matter.
unabridged 10y ago
Instead of mandating specific amount of hours per day or week, I'd like to see something like: 1.5x pay at 30 hours 2x pay at 40 hours
ptaipale 10y ago
Some former threads in HN: 2014-06-03 Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday (washingtonpost.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459 2014-07-14 Sweden's Six-Hour Workday Experiment Officially Kicks Off Tomorrow (entrepreneur.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162 2015-10-01 Some companies in Sweden are testing a six-hour work day (fastcoexist.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635 2016-04-22 Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance (thelocal.se) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538 All in all, the HN posts were not that bad, but in social media - Facebook and Twitter - I saw plenty of overly optimistic, baseless junk spouting the magnificence of how Sweden just went to 6-hour workweek for the nation and productivity gains were so huge. It was actually depressing... Well, obviously people are happier if they work a shorter day and get the same salary, and the productivity per hour may actually increase somewhat. But it won't reach the productivity of 8 (or 7.5) hours.
godzillabrennus 10y ago
I like how they reference Japan and Qatar. Japan has a pretty overworked populace and a culture that is toxic to the health of the worker. Qatar has literally brought in masses under indentured servitude to build their workforce. Not exactly countries with workforce practices that I'd like to see emulated in the USA.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sctb 10y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990
robbrown451 10y ago
This is what I'd like to see: Companies be required to offer various plans, at the employees discretion, that have different pay rates. For instance, working 75% of 40 hours might get you 80% of the salary. (with the hope that you are at least a bit more productive during your more limited hours than you would be if doing 40 hours) Employees shouldn't be discriminated based on which plan they take. They just have to give a couple months notice if they change plans, especially if it is a small company where the impact might be greater. Benefits is a complication, but personally I'd prefer health insurance etc was just separated from employment. Regardless, if you work less hours, you'd probably have to chip in more toward insurance. This may still be costly to employers, but if all companies have to do it, it should work out. (sure, there are foreign competitors, but that is a different issue) And this can potentially help with unemployment.
- RestlessMind 10y ago
  Google offers this today - you can go on part time schedule if you want, and your salary / vacation days / RSU vesting is adjusted accordingly. You get benefits if you are at least 50%.

48 points by slizard 10y ago

If we twist things the other way - this shows that you can buy happiness...

Even if it is not found to be acceptable now (which might sadly turn out to be the case even in Sweden), at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay.

zepto 10y ago
How will people get similar pay for less work?
- bencollier49 10y ago
  Deflation?
- ptaipale 10y ago
  By wishful thinking. (I.e. the theory is that people are so much happier with shorter working hours that they come up with the same productivity. However, with a drop from 8 to 6 hours this doesn't really happen, although the productivity does not drop 25 % as it would without any dynamic effects).
  - saurik 10y ago
    No: you misunderstand this line of thinking, as the goal of this subthread is not to increase efficiency or health but to mitigate unemployment in the wake of automation. The argument is similar to a minumum wage increase, where we pay people more for the same work, and about which you can make the same backhanded complaint; only instead of helping only the people with jobs (as a minimum wage increase doesn't affect you if you do not already have a wage), it brings more people into the job force while having the same effect on the bottom line of businesses (that they are paying more for the same output, only instead of giving more money to one person they are giving that money to more people). The real issues are that it assumes work that scales well to having more people involved and that it breaks the market for low-value work; but the latter issue is the same core problem with mimumum wage increases, and the person who commented with this understands, saying this is only a way to transition a society which refuses to admit basic income as a better solution due to the "welfare state" argument (which is really the same reasonable defense of the minimum wage, as well).
- pcmaffey 10y ago
  Isn't that the point of technological efficiency? If only that surplus didn't just go to the 1%...
  - adharmad 10y ago
    As a curosity - why should the surplus go to everyone? Shouldn't it go to the initiator of the innovation? The market distinguishes between the users (eg - people using MS Excel or Google search) and the initiators (in this case Microsoft or Google). Put in another way - would people be as efficient if we remove the tool they are using for the increased technological efficiency?
achamayou 10y ago
It's been tried elsewhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek), and it's not been a massive success. It certainly hasn't made a dent in the unemployment figures. We may be further from the jobs drying out than we think we are, and humans may have an ability to generate "work" for themselves greater than is generally thought. Among possible explanations anyway, there are surely many more :)
- user5994461 10y ago
  It was only tried in France. It's a different environment.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    France is not just a trial. It's the current working hours law, since 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35-hour_workweek And it hasn't been a massive success, except that employees mostly like it. But the unemployment level is roughly the same 10 % as it was before 2000, and the last time French government did not have budget deficit is still 1974.
    - user5994461 10y ago
      It's the working hours for some jobs.
Eridrus 10y ago
I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work. Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to? It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.
- eslaught 10y ago
  > shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer In the US at least they already do, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. US companies only have to pay benefits for employees to work >= 40 hours/week. So 2 employees working 20 hours/week costs less than 1 employee working 40 hours/week. (Of course this is not beneficial to the employees.)
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    The US has the obvious issue where healthcare is tied to employment and working less hours is mandatory, not voluntary.
- eropple 10y ago
  > I don't understand why we expect people to be paid the same for less work. Because it's the only way to keep the ongoing and increasingly shaky fiction that "we need everybody to work" hanging together? Foolish patches on the status quo, like "pay people more for less work", are the only way forward until we adult up and realize that the welfare state is both inevitable and beneficial (even to the self-anointed "makers" so busily hoisting themselves up on their crosses).
  - chongli 10y ago
    "we need everybody to work" Getting past this fiction is only the beginning. Many, many people find meaning in their lives through performing a task that others deem necessary. When nobody is necessary, the economy decouples from the people. We actually have examples of societies that operate like this right now: Eritrea [0] for one. The government of that country has decided it has no real use for most of its people. It makes business deals with foreign resource extraction companies directly. Many people live in abject poverty while the government enriches itself and does little/nothing to help them. Assuming we do reach a state where we no longer sustain the fiction that we need people to work, the question becomes "How do the unnecessariat [1] justify their own existance to those who control capital?" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea [1] https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/ https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
adharmad 10y ago
The problem is that, capital will flee any company that tries this to more efficient competitors. As long as it is a public company, there is no easy way to try this without any repercussions to the stock price. Countries can legislate this, but they will not be able to prevent their economies from stagnating like some of the european countries. (Flight of capital, companies moving their workforce to other places etc.) The only way (as I see it) is if we, as a society accept lesser returns on our investments (via our 401Ks and pension plans) and allow that to be reflected in the compensation and productivity of the workforce. With the increasing life expectancy, even that can turn out to be a problem in the long run, but we cross that bridge when we reach it.....
- xchaotic 10y ago
  This is very true, it's all noble and such, but for now now markets and investors follow quarterly earnings guidance and most executives are not even allowed to make decisions that improve civilisation - the role of a company is to make money not make everyone happy. Let's work with that as a starting point and not some unrealistic ideas.
emodendroket 10y ago
Why would they do that instead of doing what they've done until now and accumulating wealth at an accelerating rate? Jobs have been getting less stable for a while already.
throwaway1X2 10y ago
"at least when jobs start to dry out, people will realize that an intermediate solution to increasing unemployment is letting people work less -- hopefully for similar pay" That doesn't check out. Either working shorter hours will produce the same result. This is true in knowledge workers etc., being more rested and well-being, and cutting on jabbering in the kitchen, you can produce the same net result easily in 5-6 hours a day instead of being overworked, sitting like a zombie for 10 hours. Then, while you pay the same for shorter hours, there will be no incentive to employ new workers, you pay the same, you get the same results, it is only done in shorter hours and pay-per-hour increased, but you don't need more workforce. Or working shorter hours will produce less results. This is true in "mechanical" jobs - e.g., car production lines, or in "overwatch" jobs - e.g., power plant control rooms. Then you will need more workers and have no incentive to pay the same for less results and then pay the same for new workers to make up the results. Yes, you can pay the same numerically for less hours (i.e. when forced by law), but now producing a unit of car, flour, bread, delivering a package from e-shop, programming a feature in software system costs more and the currency will be devalued. So you will work less hours, get the same pay (numerically), but for the same number, you will be able to buy less hours from others (whether it is a product or a service).

raesene9 10y ago

For me, an important takeaway from reading this article was to consider the type of employment they trialled it on. The trial was in a retirement home, which is by design somewhere that needs 24x7 cover. This means that any reduction in hours needs to be covered by more staff, obviously necessitating more expense. What would be far more interesting to me, is a trial on an industry like software development where output isn't measured in number of hours but more in the product created. It would be interesting to see if a reduction in hours negatively or positively affected the quality/quantity of code produced.

dogma1138 10y ago
Software industry is driven by plenty of workers where work hours equal to output, maybe not development but then in the software industry in many cases development isn't the bulk of the workforce. Sure everyone can be an engineer, I've seen companies that give a title of "customer services engineer" to their phone banks, but at the end support staff which unless you work at a startup can be as high as 80% of the work force does need to be present for as many hours as possible, even 24/7 in many cases.
- raesene9 10y ago
  sure but I specifically said I was interested in seeing a trial where hours worked doesn't equal output, because that would be an interesting comparison to this trial, didn't make any comment about "the software industry"

inputcoffee 10y ago

The first question we should ask is where does the extra value come from (not money, but value, and you'll see why in a moment). One answer may be automation, and typically, the excess value is passed on to the customer in the form of lower cost. (That's why we ought to talk about value, even if we can't easily measure it). One alternative is not to pass on the value to the customer, but to give it to the workers. You could do this by reducing hours, increasing pay, or some combination. There are two problems with this: 1. You can't do this in an open, market economy. The government could do this with government jobs where they have a monopoly. 2. It is kind of arbitrary that you decide to value this particular worker over this particular consumer. Another solution is to give everyone a basic income with all the extra value (collected as taxes, roughly equally) that automation generates. So the seller might give a discount to the customer but the rest of the value would go to the state. Then people can decide how they want to spend it.

gremlinsinc 10y ago

I think the way forward is some sort of basic income, even if that's just 25% of average salaries across the country, so that then the company can employ MORE people, but make them work 25% less, and pay them 25% less making them happier, healthier, and the gov't picks up the bill for the lost 25% income to the worker... It'd also be a good experiment for gbi in general.

sethammons 10y ago
How does the government pick up the bill? They get their money from us via taxes...
- chinathrow 10y ago
  From us employed or from us running companies with profit, yes.
  - late2part 10y ago
    Why should I work, so that others who don't work get my money?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      Because it leads to a healthy vibrant society that enables you to make that money in the first place. Your income is a benefit conferred by the society in which you live, so it makes sense to return part of it to enable that society to exist.
      - late2part 10y ago
        Turtles all the way down?

ascorbic 10y ago

It seems a particularly poor choice of workplace to try this. Care homes need to maintain certain staffing levels, 24 hours a day, so there is a hard limit to the benefits that can be gained from improved productivity.

hanspragt 10y ago
I don't think you will shake out the issues if you try it in the easiest place possible.
- ascorbic 10y ago
  It's not that it's not the easiest place. It's that it's impossible. If you have a minimum required staffing level, there is no scope for savings from increased productivity. They might be able to accomplish all their tasks better in half the time, but they'd still need to pay someone else to be on site for the rest of the time.
  - hanspragt 10y ago
    If impossibility was a foregone conclusion, why try it in the first place? I appluad them for doing the study in this place.
- civility 10y ago
  You also won't find the value if you try it in the most difficult places.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
In health care, there is a very steep cost that can come from workers who are tired, distracted, overworked, more likely to make a mistake etc. And that's before factoring in lawsuits.

beerbajay 10y ago

This headline is terrible. The issue is not the cost; it's political will even by the social democratic party. As it says in the caption of the main image: > Toyota has been using the shorter workday there for more than a decade. This is typically lazy American reporting when considering different political systems/paradigms.

ThomPete 10y ago
No no no. Its not just a matter of political will. Its a question of the type of busuinees and its individual situation. the whole idea that this can be applied generally is whats wrong. Productivity simply doesent work like that. If anything is lazy its the idea that poltical view is all that matter.

unabridged 10y ago

Instead of mandating specific amount of hours per day or week, I'd like to see something like: 1.5x pay at 30 hours 2x pay at 40 hours

ptaipale 10y ago

Some former threads in HN: 2014-06-03 Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday (washingtonpost.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7838459 2014-07-14 Sweden's Six-Hour Workday Experiment Officially Kicks Off Tomorrow (entrepreneur.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029162 2015-10-01 Some companies in Sweden are testing a six-hour work day (fastcoexist.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306635 2016-04-22 Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance (thelocal.se) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543538 All in all, the HN posts were not that bad, but in social media - Facebook and Twitter - I saw plenty of overly optimistic, baseless junk spouting the magnificence of how Sweden just went to 6-hour workweek for the nation and productivity gains were so huge. It was actually depressing... Well, obviously people are happier if they work a shorter day and get the same salary, and the productivity per hour may actually increase somewhat. But it won't reach the productivity of 8 (or 7.5) hours.

godzillabrennus 10y ago

I like how they reference Japan and Qatar. Japan has a pretty overworked populace and a culture that is toxic to the health of the worker. Qatar has literally brought in masses under indentured servitude to build their workforce. Not exactly countries with workforce practices that I'd like to see emulated in the USA.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sctb 10y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990

robbrown451 10y ago

This is what I'd like to see: Companies be required to offer various plans, at the employees discretion, that have different pay rates. For instance, working 75% of 40 hours might get you 80% of the salary. (with the hope that you are at least a bit more productive during your more limited hours than you would be if doing 40 hours) Employees shouldn't be discriminated based on which plan they take. They just have to give a couple months notice if they change plans, especially if it is a small company where the impact might be greater. Benefits is a complication, but personally I'd prefer health insurance etc was just separated from employment. Regardless, if you work less hours, you'd probably have to chip in more toward insurance. This may still be costly to employers, but if all companies have to do it, it should work out. (sure, there are foreign competitors, but that is a different issue) And this can potentially help with unemployment.

RestlessMind 10y ago
Google offers this today - you can go on part time schedule if you want, and your salary / vacation days / RSU vesting is adjusted accordingly. You get benefits if you are at least 50%.