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Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is invaluable"
- Rinzler89 2y agoI hope HN readers and OP realize the difference between "30 German companies trial 4 day week" and "Germany trials 4 day week", hence my dislike for the clickbait title which I hope would be edited to make it correct. Also, according to FT[1] and Bloomberg[2], it seems the German government wants to get people to work more hours, not less, to combat economic slowdown and labor shortages, basically contradicting this article. So which is it? Do you fix labor shortages and "the economy" by getting people to work longer hours or less hours? [1] https://archive.is/WNHe5 https://archive.is/WNHe5 [2] https://archive.is/PWQvB https://archive.is/PWQvB
- number6 2y agoMost German companies do not have a problem with 4 day week - but they will decrease your payment accordingly calling it a Part-Time job
- distances 2y ago> they will decrease your payment accordingly Well of course, I don't think anyone expects to work 4 days and keep the full salary and the same accrual of holidays.
- wildrhythms 2y agoWhy not? Shouldn't technological advancements lead to less need for human labor?
- lotsofpulp 2y agoOnly if the expectations for quality of life, and other external factors such as supply of resources to maintain those expectations of quality of life, remain the same. Examples of increases in quality of life include things like living into one’s 80s and 90s using dialysis and heart surgeries and new medicines. Examples of changes in supply of resources include things like energy, labor, and a hospitable natural environment. All of these things are constantly in flux, and automation sometimes outpaces them, and sometimes does not.
- account42 2y agoWhat a weird comment considering that free time is a major component of quality of life.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoI never claimed free time was not a major component of quality of life. The insinuation was that maintaining or increasing some components of quality of life, such as labor and resource intensive healthcare, could come at a cost of other components of quality of life, such as free time (and those gains/costs are not necessarily experienced by the same person).
- Rinzler89 2y agoExactly. Imagine how will your quality of life be if all doctors, teachers, nurses, delivery workers, plumbers, service workers, also worked only 4 days/week. There would be an even worse labor shortage across the entire economy of biblical proportions. It's easy to see how it benefits you when only you're working 4 days/week but the rest of society on which your first world lifestyle depends, keeps working 5 days/week, being at your disposal for the same amount of time, while your enjoying more time off than the rest. Need a doctor? Sorry, you'll have to wait more time now because now all are working 4 days/week. Need to go grocery shopping? Sorry, everything is closed today. Need a plumber? Sorry, most are off today as well. There's no free lunch here. Moving the entire society to 4 days/week would require massive shifts economically and socially.
- account42 2y agoSo why now advocate for 6 or 7 day work week then? Because time off is worth a lot. And going from a 5 day work week to a 4 day work week is a 20% reduction of work days but a whopping 50% increase in weekend days. Meanwhile the number of doctors and plumbers etc. is not a fixed constant but driven by demand. There are plenty of qualified people currently doing useless work or unemployed who could fill those roles with the right incentives.
- jraph 2y agoActually, many of us do. My company has been trying 4 day weeks twice a month since 2022 without salary decrease, the trial have been mostly conclusive, and we'll probably move forward and have 4 day weeks all weeks at some point. That's the stated goal anyway. The main difficulty is probably the fact that customers don't have 4 days and expect support all week. A partial answer to this is people have been able to pick 2 additional days off each month no questions asked, and not everybody like the same days off so it has been working out. Studies show productivity is kept at the same level when companies switch to 4 day week, but people are happier and feel more rested (which is why there are more productive, there's probably also the fact you don't have to worry about life stuff as much at work since you can do many things that need to be done during the week during the off day). Since we produce the same amount, I don't see why the full salary should not be kept.
- dkyc 2y agoIf productivity is kept at the same level, and people work a day less, you wouldn't produce the same amount.
- jraph 2y agoI meant productivity overall is constant. Productivity "per hour" is better.
- netdevnet 2y ago> I meant productivity overall is constant That's a huge statement there. Do you have any evidence that this is the case for everyone at every company no matter what?
- jraph 2y ago> Do you have any evidence that this is the case for everyone at every company no matter what? Of course not, you are asking for the impossible. But we have evidences that 4 day weeks boost productivity at least in some settings. If you are interested in the topic, look up "4 day week productivity" on a web search engine, or "4 day week" / "4 day workweek" on HN [1,2] if you want previous discussions about this. The topic is not new here. You'll find many posts where companies think it works. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=4+day+week&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=4+day+workweek&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- Scarblac 2y agoNo, workers in Germany already have the right to work less hours in return for less pay. The idea is to lower the default weekly working hours while keeping the same salary. If productivity slowly goes up over time, it should be possible.
- distances 2y agoI see, thanks for clarifying. I've been dismissing these articles as old news as "of course you can do it for a smaller salary".
- baal80spam 2y agoYou would be surprised how many people expect 40/5 to equal 32/4
- Rinzler89 2y agoSure, but the idea usually is to work less hours for the same pay, if productivity allows for it. And many sectors have seen increased productivity, but the benefits went to shareholders instead of workers. Not advocating for communism or for seizing the means of production.
- ekianjo 2y agothe idea is that if your productivity increases and you do 5 days of work in just 4 days you will be eaten alive by other companies based in countries where they are just as productive but decide to keep working 5 days instead.
- grugagag 2y agoOnly if your company outsources your job there though.
- dagw 2y agoEven if your company doesn't outsource your job, your customers might 'outsource' their business, and you'll end up with no job either way.
- grugagag 2y agoThere’s a lot more there in the mix for customers oursourcing their business than a mere productivity measure. What stops them from outsourcing your business, the Fridays in the office?
- Rinzler89 2y agoDefinitely. That's why this doesn't really work for stuff like mass market manufacturing where your productive output is proportional to how long workers spend on the assembly line, but more for the companies that are in the innovation and knowledge work business and have secured a lucrative niche, where no competitiveness is lost due to fewer hours, but that's a relatively small percentage of the total employment.
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- dankben 2y agoThe right to a part time job has been around for about twenty years i think. The current discussion is to rethink the workweek as four days, there are multiple models in talks (4x 10 hours, 4x 8 hours with less pay, etc..) In my opinion the real problem is that the german tax system incentivises working less instead of more, as the marginal tax increases even for hours worked beyond the 40h work week -> the more you work the less you keep per hour.
- Rinzler89 2y ago4x10h 4 times per week, every week sounds horrible IMHO. I personally definitely can't be 20% more productive per day by working 2 extra hours. This would only work if you clock in 10h on paper, but actually work much less hours from home where nobody tracks how much you actually work, but if have to actually clock in 10h per day at the office, plus commute time, I'll most likely just space out and watch the clock for the rest of those two hours. And then that extra free day per week would be to recover from the long working day at the office nullifying any advantage.
- xattt 2y agoHealthcare workers often work on six-week rotations that average out to 37.5/40 h per week. The key word is average, because shifts are usually 12 hours and some weeks (one or two per six week rotation) are composed of 3 days on, 2 days off and 2 days on. This is 60h / week.
- Rinzler89 2y ago>This is 60h / week. That's not something we should praise. It's probably why healthcare workers are so burned out and make so many mistakes leading to malpractice. Maybe in certain healthcare cases, longer hours can be more tolerable when you're doing repetitive things you've already done a million times that you can do "on autopilot" without the risk of mistakes, but for mentally intensive tasks where you're constantly thinking and problem solving and need to stay sharp, there's no way I can pull 60h/week of productivity. I'm not even fully productive for the whole 40h, let alone more. I could pull 60h weeks if I were working on my own projects being my own boss answering only to myself and working at my own pace and deadlines, but not part of the soul crushing corporate machine with constant bullshit interruptions, meetings, theatrics and management breathing down my neck.
- linsomniac 2y agoThe issue in the US is that often part time jobs do not include health care, so switching to 4x32 is not something I've really considered.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoI'm not an employment expert, but I believe that in the US, jobs of more than 30 hours per week come with benefits. I don't know if that's a legal requirement or just a custom.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoUS employers are not technically required to offer subsidized health insurance. Although, it is usually cheaper for employers with more than 50 full time (30 hours per week) or full time equivalent employees to offer the subsidy rather than paying the “shared responsibility payment”. See #1. https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/questions-and-answers-on-employer-shared-responsibility-provisions-under-the-affordable-care-act https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/questions-... > Under these provisions, certain employers (called applicable large employers or ALEs) must either offer health coverage that is “affordable” and that provides “minimum value” to their full-time employees (and offer coverage to the full-time employees’ dependents), or potentially make an employer shared responsibility payment to the IRS, if at least one of their full-time employees receives a premium tax credit for purchasing individual coverage on a Health Insurance Marketplace (Marketplace), also called the Exchange.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoSo 30 hours/week is a legal threshold for being in the "full time" category.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoBasically, but just working 30+ hours per week does not mean an employer will offer subsidized health insurance. Small employers (franchised businesses, "mom and pop" businesses) will often times not offer any subsidized health insurance to any employee, since they do not meet the 50 FTE requirement to be subject to the shared responsibility payment.
- sumuyuda 2y agoWorking here in Germany, I switched to part time at 75% (5 x 6 hours). Not having to grind another two hours per day is totally worth the pay decrease. Time is the most valuable resource we have.
- netdevnet 2y agoCould be the 30 most influential companies in Germany. It's like when FAANG comes up with a new cool shinny tool (MapReduce, React, Tensorflow). Even if not everyone is using it, your will see articles saying "The tech industry now uses [insert shinny tool]" even if most of the companies are running [insert old tool].
- input_sh 2y agoIt could be, but it's not. According to LinkedIn, that one construction company they name has about 50 employees. If it were the most influential companies in Germany, that "over 1,000 employees" number would've been orders of magnitude bigger.
- Scarblac 2y agoA problem is that a substantial amount of people make more than enough money, and therefore they are looking at ways to have more free time. While at the same time there are not enough people to do all the work (in part due to retiring baby boomers). There's a labor shortage so you'd think wages would go up, but if people make more per hour then that just means they're going to work less. And migration is already at levels that gives fuel to right wing populists.
- blueflow 2y agoPart time has gotten quite common in Germany. I work 20 hrs a day and that pays my bills. Given that there is a shortage of workers, companies here increasingly have to compete for workers by means of improving working conditions and worker freedoms.
- Rinzler89 2y ago> I work 20 hrs a day and that pays my bills. Paying rent and living expenses in Germany on only 20h work? Can I ask in which city? Can't be a big one I presume like Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, etc. where rent is expensive. Or you earn a FAANG wage where 50% of that is 100% of a regular full time wage.
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- pelagicAustral 2y agoI've been working 3 day work weeks, Monday to Wednesday in batches of 2 weeks, since I have so much unspent leave. I noticed productivity during my work days is absolutely insane. I definitely get more done that when I slack my way through a 5 day week...
- seydor 2y agoStill WFH is better
- commenter1234 2y agonumber6 hints at it, but fyi once you’re through your probation period (standard is 6 months) in Germany you can request a reduction in hours for a pro-rata reduction in pay and it’s quite difficult for the company to turn down the request because of it being enshrined in labour laws. A few in my (tech) company have done this over the last while and it’s been great for me so far. Definitely wouldn’t say no to 100% salary for 80% time as in the trial but for those with developer salaries and the cost of living (where I live at least) I think most could live and save quite comfortably with the reduction, definitely recommend it.
- TreetopPlace 2y agoThere's something odd about the four-day week movement; they'e always unable to be honest in their headlines. Germany is not trialing a four-day work week.
- CaptainOfCoit 2y agoThe website ("Welcome to the Jungle") seems to be a recruitment/media company, are they some sort of grassroots movement for "four-day week" but they hide this fact?
- cwillu 2y agoThe first 6 words of the article clarify it, it's not like it's buried. Clickbait, yes, but hardly unusual or indicative of dishonesty in the movement.
- wesselbindt 2y ago> What It’s Really Like to Have a 4-Day Workweek >Why The 4-Day Workweek Is Gaining Momentum >Four-day workweek: Firms in UK make the move permanent after world’s biggest trial There you go, a bunch of honest 4 day workweek headlines I found with the most basic google search. Now you can forever dispell yourself of the idea that dishonesty is particularly prevalent in headlines about 4 day workweeks.
- Shish2k 2y ago> they'e always unable to be honest in their headlines To call this “odd” implies that other news-sources are well known for their headlines accurately representing the body of their articles?
- luciusdomitius 2y agoYou should try that when things are going well, not after purchasing power has collapsed 10s of percents over <5 years and 80% of <35yo s cannot afford to buy a flat.
- tiborsaas 2y agoTelekom in Hungary test drived with 150 then 300 employees but they ultimately failed to call it a success. Takeaway message from this is to not let employees/teams pick which day they can claim as free. Also, partially moving a company to this new scheme is asking for trouble. Be bold and ignore what sounds "safe". https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-telekom-iroda-munka-negynapos-munkahet-4-napos https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-telekom-iroda-mu... https://telex-hu.translate.goog/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-telekom-iroda-munka-negynapos-munkahet-4-napos?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=hu&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true https://telex-hu.translate.goog/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-t...
- linsomniac 2y agoHas anyone tried 4x10s (so 4 day work week but same pay)? I floated it with my direct coworker and we came to an agreement, but my boss had some level of skepticism so I haven't yet proceeded. The last couple weeks I've been "quiet trialing" it, working Friday morning to finish things up and then keeping the afternoon light. It really helps me to come into Monday refreshed, raring to go like I am after a good vacation.
- grugagag 2y agoI think 4x10 is quite the opposite in productivity because towards the end of each day, due to being tired, productivity would drop off. But maybe it’s a matter of getting used to the new rhythm and that would work out too.
- linsomniac 2y agoYMMV, but I often find myself in a weird state where it's easier for me to "hunker down" and do a couple more hours of work (because I'm already in the flow), but I'm too exhausted from work to do personal projects around the house... If I'm really feeling exhausted in the afternoon, I'm really good at taking a 25 minute "power nap", my mind goes from slightly foggy to crystal clear, and if I take it well before 5pm my sleep for the night is typically not impacted at all. It's taken some training to get to the point that I can quickly shift into sleep and then snap out of it, but it's amazingly effective.
- liampulles 2y agoThe company I work at introduced half-day Fridays. Its nice to have some time to do chores and things that are more inconvenient on a weekend, though the downside is we are more rushed to finish up our sprints. I think the second half of a Friday, especially an end-of-sprint Friday, is quite lackadaisical anyway, so its probably a good bang-for-buck perk for the company.
- jasonvorhe 2y agoI've been working a 4 day week (Fridays off, 100% salary) for a german consultancy and there's no way I'm going back to a 5 day week. I have never been this motivated to start work on Mondays and Sundays no longer feel dreadful as the weekend comes to a close. My sleep has improved and I have much more mental clarity because of just one additional day of rest.
- hamasho 2y agoI hope this experiment turns out great. But honestly, I think we should win this just because we want, not because it boosts productivity. AFAIK, when the five-day workweek became the norm, it was partly because of labor shortage and powerful unions Now labor shortage seems to be a problem too but we don't know if generative AI can solve this, and unions are declining. I wonder why unions have lost their popularity. I know some downsides of unions and companies' hard work for union busting, but I thought social media could have outweighed them.