4 ms·

I think 32 hours is too big of a step (I favor 36), but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. A lot of non-exempt people

by mlyle 5y ago

I think 32 hours is too big of a step (I favor 36), but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. A lot of non-exempt people who work 40-50 hours now will work 32-40. More people will need to be recruited into these professions and employers will have to pay a touch more. Yes, at the bottom end, from people already with multiple employers, the benefit will be indirect. Reasons to think 36 hours could be reasonable: - We've had a 40 hour work week since 1940; since then productivity has gone up by 6x, but for most of recent history labor has not shared in the gains from productivity growth. - Other developed countries have adopted a 35 hour work week with success and are even considering 32 hours now. - Automation is displacing many jobs; shortening the work week to reduce the supply of labor comparably makes sense. - Alternative schedules of 9x4 or alternating 4 & 5 day workweeks of 8 hours a day make a lot of sense and would reduce stress on transport infrastructure and free up commuting time, too.

netizen-936824 5y ago
This is assuming that productivity is linearly correlated with hours worked (it isn't)
- mlyle 5y ago
  I make no assumption of correlation between productivity and hours worked in my writing. I just say that increased productivity leaves room for this change. If productivity is sublinear, that's an even better argument for shortening the week. If you reduce hours worked by x% and production is reduced by much less than x%, that's great for society too. I mean, what's our objective-- chaining people to the workplace or getting things done? Many jobs requiring coverage / a person to be present will still make the "reduced supply" argument true.
mschuster91 5y ago
> but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. Maybe companies would then be forced to eliminate what is commonly called "bullshit jobs" and invest in process optimization. There is so much potential for trimming fat in processes, it's incredible - for example in large companies, sometimes five to six people are involved in reimbursing a 5$ expense: the employee who bought a thing, the team lead, department VP, the data entry person in accounting, the accounting team lead and the person responsible for paying out money/cutting checks. Altogether, that simple 5$ expense burned half an hour of time (or, depending how horrid the processes and tools are, anything to two hours). If the labor cost of all these people would make such processual time waste inexplicably expensive, maybe companies would be forced to give the team leads a budget for small scale expenses and implement a fully digital process. Or your average "daily scrum meeting": no matter the company, everyone sans the boss who wants "progress reports" to show to superiors (again, see my take above on "bullshit jobs"...) loathes it, even if it's "only" fifteen minutes. No I don't care what the fuck you are working on, if you want help for a problem or are stuck somewhere post it in the Teams channel, now leave me the fuck alone to drink my coffee in peace. A team of eight people wasting 15 min each work day is 10 working hours a week. Or inadequate equipment: thankfully I have been at places that issued top notch equipment for the majority of my career, but I began in the public sector in sysops - and my private laptop had double or thrice the CPU and RAM power that the ages old desktop office machine. The amount of time wasted waiting for compiles or even loading Office... jesus. Or inadequate tooling: just how many corporate processes are built on slow, complex Excel datasheetsm slow 1970s-ish mainframe UIs or require manual copying of data between applications is mind-boggling.
Ericson2314 5y ago
> Automation is displacing many jobs; shortening the work week to reduce the supply of labor comparably makes sense. On the contrary, today's automation is half-assed machine learning bullshit for shits and is giggles, because there is not enough labor shortage to make the boring stuff (more kiosks, more trains, etc.) a good investment. Cheap labor is the cause of automatino and undermines the capitalist drive for automation. The only way to us programmers to meaningfully contribute to society outside of stupid moon shots is to continuously reduce the supply of labor so their is demand for efficiency --- honest demand that isn't predicated on the tech in question being "cool".
- mlyle 5y ago
  > On the contrary, today's automation is half-assed machine learning bullshit for shits and is giggles, because there is not enough labor shortage to make the boring stuff (more kiosks, more trains, etc.) a good investment. We have plenty of kiosks, self-checkout, automated fulfillment and logistics, etc happening. We also have plenty of higher skilled jobs having portions automated. Productivity is way up in the last 50 years, and that's through automation and mechanization. > Cheap labor is the cause of automatino and undermines the capitalist drive for automation. Honestly, I cannot figure out what you're saying, between the pronouns, typos, and jumbled sentences.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    I should have said today's big attempts at further automation. > We have plenty of kiosks, self-checkout, automated fulfillment and logistics, etc happening. We also have plenty of higher skilled jobs having portions automated. Productivity is way up in the last 50 years, and that's through automation and mechanization. We have indeed accumulated tons of this stuff over that time, and that's good! But the more labor id frees up, the less incentive it is to continue down that route. Like, why buy another kiosk, if there is a gazillion people clamoring to be your cashier? The only way to keep constant the financial incentive for further automation is to keep labor markets tight, which we either do by bumping up demand, or reducing labor supply. My point is a lot of people talking about a "jobs apocalypse" seem to assume the technology will just happen no matter what, but that's not true. Stuff gets stuck in the research phase if it's not profitable to develop. The supply of "potential automation" doesn't create it's own demand for actually deployed automation and this is even worse, because the resulting stagnation obscures the root problem.

by mlyle 5y ago

netizen-936824 5y ago

This is assuming that productivity is linearly correlated with hours worked (it isn't)

mlyle 5y ago
I make no assumption of correlation between productivity and hours worked in my writing. I just say that increased productivity leaves room for this change. If productivity is sublinear, that's an even better argument for shortening the week. If you reduce hours worked by x% and production is reduced by much less than x%, that's great for society too. I mean, what's our objective-- chaining people to the workplace or getting things done? Many jobs requiring coverage / a person to be present will still make the "reduced supply" argument true.

mschuster91 5y ago

> but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. Maybe companies would then be forced to eliminate what is commonly called "bullshit jobs" and invest in process optimization. There is so much potential for trimming fat in processes, it's incredible - for example in large companies, sometimes five to six people are involved in reimbursing a 5$ expense: the employee who bought a thing, the team lead, department VP, the data entry person in accounting, the accounting team lead and the person responsible for paying out money/cutting checks. Altogether, that simple 5$ expense burned half an hour of time (or, depending how horrid the processes and tools are, anything to two hours). If the labor cost of all these people would make such processual time waste inexplicably expensive, maybe companies would be forced to give the team leads a budget for small scale expenses and implement a fully digital process. Or your average "daily scrum meeting": no matter the company, everyone sans the boss who wants "progress reports" to show to superiors (again, see my take above on "bullshit jobs"...) loathes it, even if it's "only" fifteen minutes. No I don't care what the fuck you are working on, if you want help for a problem or are stuck somewhere post it in the Teams channel, now leave me the fuck alone to drink my coffee in peace. A team of eight people wasting 15 min each work day is 10 working hours a week. Or inadequate equipment: thankfully I have been at places that issued top notch equipment for the majority of my career, but I began in the public sector in sysops - and my private laptop had double or thrice the CPU and RAM power that the ages old desktop office machine. The amount of time wasted waiting for compiles or even loading Office... jesus. Or inadequate tooling: just how many corporate processes are built on slow, complex Excel datasheetsm slow 1970s-ish mainframe UIs or require manual copying of data between applications is mind-boggling.

Ericson2314 5y ago

> Automation is displacing many jobs; shortening the work week to reduce the supply of labor comparably makes sense. On the contrary, today's automation is half-assed machine learning bullshit for shits and is giggles, because there is not enough labor shortage to make the boring stuff (more kiosks, more trains, etc.) a good investment. Cheap labor is the cause of automatino and undermines the capitalist drive for automation. The only way to us programmers to meaningfully contribute to society outside of stupid moon shots is to continuously reduce the supply of labor so their is demand for efficiency --- honest demand that isn't predicated on the tech in question being "cool".

mlyle 5y ago
> On the contrary, today's automation is half-assed machine learning bullshit for shits and is giggles, because there is not enough labor shortage to make the boring stuff (more kiosks, more trains, etc.) a good investment. We have plenty of kiosks, self-checkout, automated fulfillment and logistics, etc happening. We also have plenty of higher skilled jobs having portions automated. Productivity is way up in the last 50 years, and that's through automation and mechanization. > Cheap labor is the cause of automatino and undermines the capitalist drive for automation. Honestly, I cannot figure out what you're saying, between the pronouns, typos, and jumbled sentences.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  I should have said today's big attempts at further automation. > We have plenty of kiosks, self-checkout, automated fulfillment and logistics, etc happening. We also have plenty of higher skilled jobs having portions automated. Productivity is way up in the last 50 years, and that's through automation and mechanization. We have indeed accumulated tons of this stuff over that time, and that's good! But the more labor id frees up, the less incentive it is to continue down that route. Like, why buy another kiosk, if there is a gazillion people clamoring to be your cashier? The only way to keep constant the financial incentive for further automation is to keep labor markets tight, which we either do by bumping up demand, or reducing labor supply. My point is a lot of people talking about a "jobs apocalypse" seem to assume the technology will just happen no matter what, but that's not true. Stuff gets stuck in the research phase if it's not profitable to develop. The supply of "potential automation" doesn't create it's own demand for actually deployed automation and this is even worse, because the resulting stagnation obscures the root problem.