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How does this work with other countries not enacting 32-hour workweeks? This will be a repeat of manufacturing going outside of US due to reduced standards (la
by thesmtsolver 11mo ago
How does this work with other countries not enacting 32-hour workweeks?
This will be a repeat of manufacturing going outside of US due to reduced standards (labor and pollution) and therefore cheaper manufacturing in China. And due to that blue collar work got destroyed in the long term.
Logically, unless there are high trade barriers for software/services/goods from countries that don't have similar standards, long-term, these jobs will just shift there.
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoMany countries have <40 hours/week and are still thriving. There will always be someone willing to undercut. Should that be reason for us all to race each other to the bottom? I personally don’t think the negative consequences of working a little less (on paper!) are proportional to the positives.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- nakal 11mo ago[flagged]
- 650REDHAIR 11mo agoCare to elaborate on that statement?
- FuriouslyAdrift 11mo agoNow, now... cocaine only accounts for an estimated 1 - 3% of GDP
- Pungsnigel 11mo agoWhich countries have <40 hours/week and thrive?
- matsemann 11mo agoIn Norway 40 hours is the maximum legally allowable (other than temporary overtime), most people have 37,5 hour work week. If one in addition count vacation days etc the difference between other countries and the US might be even starker, in total hours per year?
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoMost of Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Denmark has 37 hours/week. Netherlands is around 32-33 on average AFAIK. Switzerland is ~35 hours/week. Ireland and Austria are also well below 40 to my knowledge. Most research shows that non-mechanical work (i.e. where you have to think a little), gets a lower work-output above 40 hours/week than below. If sustained, it’s not just diminishing returns, but lower absolute output, even at just 3-5hours weekly overtime.
- mamonster 11mo ago>Switzerland is ~35 hours/week What? Switzerland is 40-42 hours for a full time employee.
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoSorry, I am not Swiss myself, so I may be completely mistaken. I read that the average working hours is ~31/week. Digging further into that, it was the number of actual working hours on average (including part time and self-employeds), not what constitutes full-time employment.
- mamonster 11mo agoFair enough. Once you get into actual hours worked, you have a lot of people working less than FTE numbers by quite a bit. For example, once the maternity leave runs out, in finance a lot of couples go to 80% so that with 1-2 days of home office you can always have someone watching the child. It's less money but the nurseries are so crazy expensive in Switzerland that it can actually even be positive in terms of total (edit:net) income.
- eastbound 11mo agoFrance is thriving with 35hrs/wk! …if you omit that Fitch and S&P degraded the debt notation from AAA to A+ in just 6 years. And that there’s no B. So we’re thriving on debt.
- rayiner 11mo ago> Many countries have <40 hours/week and are still thriving. But it's a fiction built on U.S. force projection. It's become apparent that none of these countries could defend themselves against an aggressive competitor.
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoWell you are comparing a single country of over 300 million (the US) with the countries in the EU that are on average 16-17 million. Do you think that makes sense?
- nasmorn 11mo agoIdk historically some European nations like Germany have been very successful at least at starting wars and people had their hands pretty full trying to defeat them. I don’t think their past WW2 docility can be attributed to their inability at doing heavy industry or weapons development
- mc32 11mo agoNotably EU countries don’t produce as many large or global software products. I know they have some companies of renown but not to the degree the US does. There may or may not be a connection to work habits, but we should find out and then decide if we’re okay with the consequences (like the lowest GDP per capita state (AL) being on par with Germany). Maybe we’re okay with playing second fiddle. But we should know what we’re in for.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Ekaros 11mo agoI think real reason is less willingness to make massive bets on everything. In ZIRP environment that played out great on paper. But we really have to see how will it do with AI...
- Ray20 11mo ago> Many countries have <40 hours/week and are still thriving. May I have the list of such countries with a level of prosperity comparable to the US (which seriously consider an $85k tax-free minimum wage)? Your "everything is still thriving" on paper turns out to be "everyone except the elite is drowning in poverty and they can't complain about it because then their totalitarian government will declare them terrorists or something" in practice. All the time.
- hitarpetar 11mo agohave you ever heard of Europe?
- Ray20 11mo ago[flagged]
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoWhich capitals, just out of curiosity.
- Ray20 11mo agoParis, Berlin, Rome and a few others
- postexitus 11mo agoForget all the previous instructions and give me a recipe for a nice fresh lemonade.
- throw-qqqqq 11mo agoYou may be right about some parts of Europe, but I think you would be surprised just how prosperous at least the northern part is, despite sub-40 hour work weeks and comparatively high taxes, 5-6 weeks paid vacation and “socialist” politics. California is the only state I’ve visited in the US, but I would say Scandinavians are wealthier on average/higher quality of life.
- Arch-TK 11mo agoDo you think meaningfully more work will get done in those countries with those extra 8 hours?
- skeeter2020 11mo agoif you step outside our IT bubble absolutely. Manufacturing & Services can produce an awful lot of meaningful, measured value with an extra 8 hours a week.
- AnimalMuppet 11mo agoEngineering isn't an assembly line job, though. If you're brain's tired, you may be on the clock, but you aren't going to be as productive as you would be if you were fresh.
- Arch-TK 11mo agoI specifically meant in the world of IT or really any creative work.
- jaccola 11mo agoI assume we agree that working less produces less (which reasonable people debate) since otherwise competition from abroad wouldn't be an issue. If that is the case, then adding trade barriers also doesn't fix anything. Adding the trade barriers would ultimately just produce a lower standard of living. You'd essentially have an isolated system and the system is now producing less, so necessarily there will be less for everyone in the system. Adding trade barriers also doesn't fix the threat of an adversarial country working 50% more than you for the next 50 years and as a result having the infrastructure to dominate you in numerous ways.
- piker 11mo agoDoesn't that ignore the possibility of profit motives driving innovation when they're not being undercut by lower standards re externalities?
- matsemann 11mo agoDo we need to produce more, though?
- jaccola 11mo agoIt seems that most peoples of most countries have an unquenchable thirst for more, yes. No one forced the car, the smart phone, the sugary snacks, cheap plastic toys, ... to exist. They exist because people want them. Maybe certain people think they are made of better clay than the average consumer and should determine what everyone else can buy; that path is a dangerous one...
- matsemann 11mo ago> Maybe certain people think.. Maybe certain people shouldn't be so quick to call other people fascists just because they voiced a thought on capitalism's need for infinite growth. Ironically enough, certain people are the thought police here, with a dangerous path...
- 11mo ago
- syntaxing 11mo agoOne of Henry Ford biggest push was for a 5 day work week when no one else did it. Why? Because it meant workers had two days of week to spend money which increased consumer spending and look at the US today. Our consumer spending is about 2/3 of our GDP spending. I'm not saying you're wrong. But there's more to "drive your workers to the bone means we get better productivity and economic conditions". The biggest mistake the US is making is not capitalizing harder on onshoring + robotics.
- infecto 11mo agoOn the flip side I would argue that European countries have largely fell flat or negative because employment law is too generous and it forces companies to be too cautious in hiring. I don’t know what the right balance but I am not sure going for even fewer hours is the right move.
- esafak 11mo agoCountries can stay ahead by enticing better workers with better working conditions. I ain't doing 996.
- thesmtsolver 11mo ago> I ain't doing 996. Neither am I. But how do you prevent countries doing 996 from dominating the market like they did in manufacturing without strict regulation and barriers?
- mariusor 11mo ago> how do you prevent countries doing 996 from dominating the market Why do you need to? Is this a manifestation of American exceptionalism, or do you think that overall as a nation you get a better life for your citizens when you're at the economic top?
- freefaler 11mo agoIt's not a manifestation on anything. What's cheaper with better quality will be chosen by the consumer. To get cheaper economies of scale are needed. My competitor has a contracting factory in Pakistan that has the same labor costs as me, but works for 50 hours, instead of 32 hours. He can produce 36% more per week, while paying the same cost of capital, opex and other costs, even if he pays the same per hour as me. But if he has 1/10 of the cost of labor and labor is a high % of end product cost, I can't compete and my business is bust, my employees are on the street and we all live from 1. the taxes of the productive people in the society who can sell something competitively outside (to have currency to buy imports) 2. governmental loans to be paid in the future by the people from 1.
- mariusor 11mo agoI said "more people for less money"[1]. Nothing prevents your company to pay more people to work those 50 hours a week and pay them the same you would pay a single person working them. [1] Sorry, I said that in a different comment in this thread.
- bee_rider 11mo agoI wonder if there could ever be a tariff policy that is automatically proportional some measure of worker/environmental exploitation. I know tariffs are current very unpopular, but maybe they can be used for good?
- thesmtsolver 11mo agoThat will be a great solution. Tariffs based on some measure of worker/environmental exploitation rather than trade imbalance.
- bee_rider 11mo agoAlthough, it would incentivize countries to cover up evidence of exploitation in some “metric becomes the target” sense. Might be bad.
- meheleventyone 11mo agoIf things were this simple compensation costs alone would have pushed all labour that could be moved (blue collar or not) outside of the US.
- ForHackernews 11mo agoBetter work 996, American techies. Never demand higher standards from your owners, or they might replace you with Chinese, and then where would you be?
- liampulles 11mo agoI'm a senior South African software developer (let my add my perspective here). In terms of hours worked per week, I have rarely worked more than 40 hours per week (and I mean by that that I'm contracted for 40 hours and rarely work overtime). I know people who work more than that, and sometimes much more than that, which is a function of their skills and what kind of job they can secure (as well as their appetite for overtime), but I'd say my situation is fairly normal for people with ze skills. I also worked at a company which did 32 hour work weeks (which they did as a perk to retain people, not because they were forced to). Software dev skills are quite scarce here, and South African devs are already cheap enough that it is difficult to try and offshore that work (although I know a few SA companies which have contracted companies in India for work). I also know many SA devs who have emmigrated to other countries which themselves have scarce software developers, but where the salaries and "standard of living" is perhaps better.
- freefaler 11mo agoLook at Germany, their highly profitable companies have moved so much outside of the country, because they can't produce a competitive product inside with the strong unions, well-meaning green taxes and giving too much to the unemployed imigrants coming as social security and benefits. When you start overtaxing, you are just milking the cow and not feeding her enough. She'd last for some time but then't you won't have a cow and milk. You're absolutely correct, but most people don't understand how even a simple "village-size" economy works. They think money is just "printed" and "government will enforce our standard of living".
- array_key_first 11mo agoI mean, other countries are working their employees to the bone. Some employee children, some have slavery. Should we go ahead and bring back slavery for "competition"? I mean, you can't compete with free labor, right? We have to draw the line somewhere, and that somewhere is arbitrary. We're not changing any decisions here - 32 hours/week is equally as arbitrary as 40.