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Hiring is actually a tremendous burden for most small/mid sized business with all of the compliance and regulatory stuff. Its far cheaper to hire one person for

Hiring is actually a tremendous burden for most small/mid sized business with all of the compliance and regulatory stuff. Its far cheaper to hire one person for 40 hours/week than 2 people for 20, even if their pay is half.

mysterypie 8y ago
This. It’s interesting to read all the other reasons people think that we don’t have a shorter workweek but the above is the simplest reason. It’s also easier to manage 1 person working 40 hours than 2 people working 20 hours. It’s also less effort to interview and hire 1 vs 2 people. As the business owner you might even prefer hiring a 60 hour employee over 1.5 40 hour employees by the same reasoning, but we in the U.S. and western world have reached an equilibrium in the supply/demand at something around 40 hours.
- Faark 8y ago
  Saying employers don't want it is kind of stating the obvious. Of cause the employer tries to extract as much value as possible, while most discussion in this thread seems centered around improving quality of live of employees. So looking at only one side of the labor market doesn't really help. The more interesting question is employees make deals without it. Is it actually true to say there is an market equilibrium at 40 hours? I'm no expert, but 40h seems heavily reinforced by regulation (FLSA comes up on search). Without government intervention, I'd not see much stopping a race to the bottom, at least for a significant part of the job market. I wonder if less wealth inequality would give more leverage to the average citizen, enough so that this additional bargaining power would make a significant difference on the job market. Influences like that might explain the systems trends over longer time periods...
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
You need to account for all the people who leave a job and would have stayed for a 30-hours week. High turn rate companies see that all the time.

mysterypie 8y ago

This. It’s interesting to read all the other reasons people think that we don’t have a shorter workweek but the above is the simplest reason. It’s also easier to manage 1 person working 40 hours than 2 people working 20 hours. It’s also less effort to interview and hire 1 vs 2 people. As the business owner you might even prefer hiring a 60 hour employee over 1.5 40 hour employees by the same reasoning, but we in the U.S. and western world have reached an equilibrium in the supply/demand at something around 40 hours.

Faark 8y ago
Saying employers don't want it is kind of stating the obvious. Of cause the employer tries to extract as much value as possible, while most discussion in this thread seems centered around improving quality of live of employees. So looking at only one side of the labor market doesn't really help. The more interesting question is employees make deals without it. Is it actually true to say there is an market equilibrium at 40 hours? I'm no expert, but 40h seems heavily reinforced by regulation (FLSA comes up on search). Without government intervention, I'd not see much stopping a race to the bottom, at least for a significant part of the job market. I wonder if less wealth inequality would give more leverage to the average citizen, enough so that this additional bargaining power would make a significant difference on the job market. Influences like that might explain the systems trends over longer time periods...

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

You need to account for all the people who leave a job and would have stayed for a 30-hours week. High turn rate companies see that all the time.