4 ms·

Interesting to see Greece taking population decline one way - more work days, and Japan the opposite. Hopefully Japan is right.

voidbert 2y ago
From what I read, Greece's policy was (partially) due to labour shortages during the tourism season, while Japan has lots of workers who work many unproductive hours (some just go to the office for the sake of going). I'd say they're different policies for quite different contexts.
drak0n1c 2y ago
They're starting from different baselines. Japan has a widespread culture of overwork, and Greece is notorious for the extreme opposite.
- maeil 2y ago
  Greece is always on top of those "hours worked per month" statistic for Europe. So at least the data strongly contradicts that notion.
  - chrisandchris 2y ago
    I think "hours worked per month" and "hours _reported as work_ per month" do not have to correlate.
  - hyperman1 2y ago
    When I took a bus in Greece, 4 people were needed for a bus: 1 in a ticket shop, 1 selling tickets on the bus, 1 validating tickets, and 1 driver. None were in any kind of hurry. In Belgium, there is only the driver and maybe on the busiest locations a ticket shop.
  - izacus 2y ago
    Greeks are also kings of faked misrepresented data so that doesn't mean much.
- petre 2y ago
  Ah, the lazy Greeks stereotype at it again. A myth spread by the creditor states' governments, namely Germany's Angela Merkel, when in fact the Eurozone is broken by design. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/design-failures-eurozone https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/design-failures-eurozone
  - rcbdev 2y ago
    Maybe faking most of the data to join the Eurozone is not such a good idea then, Greece. So is also not kicking them out the second the swindle is realized, EU. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admits-faking-data-to-join-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admit...
    - leansensei 2y ago
      The EU was complicit in pretending that Greece's data could be taken without a mound of salt.
      - petre 2y ago
        Guess who helped Greece hide their debt? Goldman and Sachs. And guess who worked for Goldman during that time? Mario Draghi, who was rewarded with a term as the ECB president afterwards. https://www.politico.eu/article/mario-draghi-ecb-trichet-bank-financial-crisis-economy/ https://www.politico.eu/article/mario-draghi-ecb-trichet-ban...
      - izacus 2y ago
        For someone to be complicit, the other party had to be instigator of the crime, right? Poor Greeks, forced into corruption, they would NEVER do that by themselves!
toomuchtodo 2y ago
All 4 day week pilots to date have been overwhelmingly successful [1]. This should be a no brainer considering existing productivity levels combined with Parkinson’s Law (“work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“). With process improvements and scheduling, the biggest hurdle is ideology around work. You see this emphasized in the US with people bragging how hard they work themselves, in Japan it’s not leaving until the boss leaves and similar [2]. Tangentially, as the working age cohort shrinks, labor has more power in this regard, and Japan’s labor force continues to shrink due to structural demographics decline [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992783 (citations) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment (“Wikipedia: Japanese work environment“) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan (“Wikipedia: Labor market of Japan“)
- thegrim33 2y ago
  For anyone swayed by the level of citations, I'd advise you to spend the time to actually, legitimately, research into them for yourself. In my experience once you investigate down into them they're always unconvincing. They either have an abysmal sample size, or are opinion pieces with no data behind them, or are multiple presses releases which all link to the same one single horrible study as their proof, or they have non-sensible methodology performed by the most biased group imaginable, etc.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - azthecx 2y ago
    Since you've already looked into it, do you happen to have studies of particular quality for or against reduced work hours?
- cedws 2y ago
  Is it that work expands to fill the time allocated, or is it that the time allocated isn’t enough for completion because it was decided by people who have no idea what they’re talking about?

voidbert 2y ago

From what I read, Greece's policy was (partially) due to labour shortages during the tourism season, while Japan has lots of workers who work many unproductive hours (some just go to the office for the sake of going). I'd say they're different policies for quite different contexts.

drak0n1c 2y ago

They're starting from different baselines. Japan has a widespread culture of overwork, and Greece is notorious for the extreme opposite.

maeil 2y ago
Greece is always on top of those "hours worked per month" statistic for Europe. So at least the data strongly contradicts that notion.
- chrisandchris 2y ago
  I think "hours worked per month" and "hours _reported as work_ per month" do not have to correlate.
- hyperman1 2y ago
  When I took a bus in Greece, 4 people were needed for a bus: 1 in a ticket shop, 1 selling tickets on the bus, 1 validating tickets, and 1 driver. None were in any kind of hurry. In Belgium, there is only the driver and maybe on the busiest locations a ticket shop.
- izacus 2y ago
  Greeks are also kings of faked misrepresented data so that doesn't mean much.
petre 2y ago
Ah, the lazy Greeks stereotype at it again. A myth spread by the creditor states' governments, namely Germany's Angela Merkel, when in fact the Eurozone is broken by design. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/design-failures-eurozone https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/design-failures-eurozone
- rcbdev 2y ago
  Maybe faking most of the data to join the Eurozone is not such a good idea then, Greece. So is also not kicking them out the second the swindle is realized, EU. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admits-faking-data-to-join-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admit...
  - leansensei 2y ago
    The EU was complicit in pretending that Greece's data could be taken without a mound of salt.
    - petre 2y ago
      Guess who helped Greece hide their debt? Goldman and Sachs. And guess who worked for Goldman during that time? Mario Draghi, who was rewarded with a term as the ECB president afterwards. https://www.politico.eu/article/mario-draghi-ecb-trichet-bank-financial-crisis-economy/ https://www.politico.eu/article/mario-draghi-ecb-trichet-ban...
    - izacus 2y ago
      For someone to be complicit, the other party had to be instigator of the crime, right? Poor Greeks, forced into corruption, they would NEVER do that by themselves!

toomuchtodo 2y ago

All 4 day week pilots to date have been overwhelmingly successful [1]. This should be a no brainer considering existing productivity levels combined with Parkinson’s Law (“work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“). With process improvements and scheduling, the biggest hurdle is ideology around work. You see this emphasized in the US with people bragging how hard they work themselves, in Japan it’s not leaving until the boss leaves and similar [2]. Tangentially, as the working age cohort shrinks, labor has more power in this regard, and Japan’s labor force continues to shrink due to structural demographics decline [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992783 (citations) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment (“Wikipedia: Japanese work environment“) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan (“Wikipedia: Labor market of Japan“)

thegrim33 2y ago
For anyone swayed by the level of citations, I'd advise you to spend the time to actually, legitimately, research into them for yourself. In my experience once you investigate down into them they're always unconvincing. They either have an abysmal sample size, or are opinion pieces with no data behind them, or are multiple presses releases which all link to the same one single horrible study as their proof, or they have non-sensible methodology performed by the most biased group imaginable, etc.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- azthecx 2y ago
  Since you've already looked into it, do you happen to have studies of particular quality for or against reduced work hours?
cedws 2y ago
Is it that work expands to fill the time allocated, or is it that the time allocated isn’t enough for completion because it was decided by people who have no idea what they’re talking about?