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Asian governments roll out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel crisis caused by war
- niek_pas 8mo ago"Asia" didn't roll out anything. Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, and Pakistan rolled out independent measures.
- butILoveLife 8mo agoRight? Weird title.
- nhubbard 8mo agoMaybe a better title would say "Asian nations [independently] roll out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel crisis"?
- alephnerd 8mo ago^ "Some" Asian nations. It's still 5/6 day workweeks in the office in China, India, SK, Japan, HK, and Singapore. Same in the Gulf.
- wolvoleo 8mo agoWell, the gulf probably won't be affected? As they can just be supplied by fuel truck or pipeline instead of ship.
- alephnerd 8mo agoSame for exports as well depending on the country. For example, India worked with Oman, the UAE, and Iran to build export hubs like Duqm, Fujairah, Sohar, and Chabahar (the US has ignored Indian operated Shahid Beheshti port and is hitting Konarak on the other side of the Chabahar Bay) that aren't blocked by Hormuz. By making sure Indian SOEs were equity partners in those projects, this meant India got first right of refusal on exports. China, Japan, and South Korea all implemented similar projects as well. Other Asian countries could have implemented similar redundancies as well, but they didn't despite this exact situation happening 3-4 years ago during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
- tarentel 8mo agoRight this is a terrible title. An equally bad and catchy title would have been Asia orders people to take stairs instead of elevators.
- bsimpson 8mo agoEspecially because it sounds like the Philippines is pushing for a 4 day workweek, but the rest of SEA is asking people to work from home, use less AC, take the stairs…
- alephnerd 8mo agoIt's also Vietnam, Thailand, and unofficially Pakistan. The reality is the bigger Asian nations like China, India, SK, and Japan that worked on building resilient alternatives after the 2022-23 ONG shock due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine aren't as dramatically impacted. The others didn't or were hit by other crises at the same time. For example, in Pakistan's case, their government raised fuel taxes by around 33% because they didn't meet their IMF loan terms [0] but somehow found $11M to buy a private jet [1] for the CM of Punjab who is also the niece of the PM and the daughter of the former PM and Pakistan is in the middle of a war with Afghanistan [2]. Edit: can't reply > gas cylinder booking... The gas cylinder/LPG issue is due to consumer habits - induction and electric stovetops have been available in India for decades, but there has been a cultural aversion to adopting electric. Even Indian Americans in the US prefer using Gas Stovetops over Electric for cultural reasons (eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops despite living here since Clinton was president). And dhabas and restaurants used to use coal briquettes or kerosene until those were banned in the 2000s-2010s for pollution reasons (much help that did /s) and to promote LNG and CNG, and will most likely revert back to those. Additionally, India has shifted from Qatari to Omani LNG [3], which was what India was already using before the India-Qatar FTA led to a diplomatic thaw between the two. It's the same situation in Vietnam as well. > freight is pretty much fucked Indian diesel prices are being subsidized and kept constant [4]. That said, this is a good forcing function to begin India's shift to electric trucks. And freight and passenger rail is already around 98-99% electrified in India [5] which reduces the need for diesel. [0] - https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709 https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709 [1] - https://www.arabnews.com/node/26978/pakistan https://www.arabnews.com/node/26978/pakistan [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakistan_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakis... [3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-gail-buys-oman-lng-cargo-sources-say-2026-03-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-gail-buys-oman... [4] - https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/petrol-diesel-prices-to-remain-stable-despite-iran-war-risks-government-sources-11204150 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/petrol-diesel-prices-to-rema... [5] - https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railways/indian-railways-achieves-near-100-electrification-reduces-diesel-use-by-62/128239209 https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railways/ind...
- neaden 8mo agoThe thing I feel like is really important to remember whenever thinking about the world and demographics is that most people are Asian. As in more people live in Asia then outside of it. Conversely when a headline or something mentions Asia, it is rare they actually mean the majority of the continent or people living there.
- bombcar 8mo agoIt's too broad a term - it covers too many disparate countries and ends up being like using Americas to refer to Canada and the USA or similar. I read the headline and assumed it was "Japan and China" but it wasn't.
- EA-3167 8mo agoThe equivalent term is "The West."
- neaden 8mo agoTBF the entire Western Hemisphere is about the population of China, so it's actually far far worse.
- aleph_minus_one 8mo agoIt is quite unclear how big China's population really is; see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFbMWq-xvXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFbMWq-xvXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmaYswXm78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmaYswXm78
- fulafel 8mo agoIt's a common pattern in HN headlines to assign agency to non-US continents and countries. We hear Europe and China doing stuff all the time as well. It's strange.
- achierius 8mo agoIsn't that a good deal more reasonable though? China, as a polity, does indeed have agency. It's strange to suggest they don't, as if only America can do things on the world stage.
- speefers 8mo ago[dead]
- fulafel 8mo agoSure, the usages aren't all flawed. But it's far more likely to see "Europe" doing something than "US" doing something in the headlines in similar cases, I feel. Same goes for China, if a couple of companies do something, often in the headline it's just the general "China" doing it. For example we'll see China doing something with EVs whereas for the US we'd see Tesla doing something with EVs.
- graemep 8mo agoEurope usually is (inaccurately) used to mean the EU. Even if not, it never seems to include the biggest European country by land area and population (even if you count just the European part of it). China is a country so what is the problem there.
- hshdhdhj4444 8mo agoIf someone attributed something to Europe but the only a handful of nations, which didn’t even include the largest ones, were engaging in the behavior, it would also be incorrect. “Parts of Europe” or “Europe increasingly” etc would be ok (the latter if there was an expected progression of these policies to other European nations). This headline is similarly misleading.
- 8mo ago
- thewhitetulip 8mo agoCan't expect Western media to write well. I saw a funnt reel today. It's Italy to Americans but Eye-ran and Eye-raq...
- quesera 8mo agoThere's no reason for Italy and Iran/Iraq to be pronounced similarly. (Cf Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho?) But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop. Or maybe just "we disrespect you in advance of killing you"? Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.
- esseph 8mo agoI've lived in over a dozen states and I've never heard either called anything other than EYE-(ran/raq) in conversation. The extremely, I mean extremely rare occasion when someone pronounces it differently on TV, it's almost like they get side-eyed by other people as trying to "talk fancy".
- quesera 8mo agoWell, I've lived in four states in the last 20 years. Anecdotally, the pronunciation popularity has split neatly along statewide-prominent political lines. For my four example states, three were correct/respectful, and one wrong/disrespectful. Correct pronunciation has also had an inverse correlation with the rates of active/former military employment, which might be more directly indicative. And a positive correlation with education levels. So the answer is in there somewhere, I suspect. National TV "news" programming might have a style guide which dictates pandering to the audience by speaking in real american, no matter how well-educated the hosts might be.
- esseph 8mo agoI've been thinking about this a bit more and I think we're actually talking about two (or more) different pronunciations. There is a VERY hard "I" that Lindsey Graham does. I think that's the specific version you're talking about, and that one is intentionally offputting. It's like "EYEEE RACK", but that does sound different from "AYERAK" or "EYEROQ".
- Razengan 8mo ago"Asia" is one of the dumbest archaic misnomers still in use by Western people
- recursive 8mo agoWhat do you call it? It's a continent, right?
- nobodyandproud 8mo agoThe phrasing and implication is all wrong. “4-day week, WFH roll-outs in Asia to solve fuel crisis caused by Iran War” is better.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoCalling Eurasia a continent would make more sense. "Asia" doesn't have a really sensical physical boundary. May as well say Mexico is a different continent from the US just because there's a big cultural and ethnic difference across the border.
- bombcar 8mo agoThe term "North America" almost always means US or US and Canada, hardly ever the technically correct "US, Canada, Mexico" except in things like NAFTA. And "Central America" often means "Mexico and countries south that speak Spanish" even though LATAM might be a bit closer.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoOther nonsensical terminology also existing would imply nothing about the usage of "Asia". That said, I'm not sure I see the same incorrect usage of North America as you do, either.
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- thelastgallon 8mo agoI wish India did this. Millions of copy paste workers, would ease up traffic.
- linhns 8mo agoI’m living in one of these countries. Abject failure from powers that be to even consider 4-day workweek as an alleviation. Not the first time it happens yet they learn nothing.
- alephnerd 8mo agoTbf, from what I've heard within my professional network and extended family, most bureaucrats who are not associated with BCA are functionally paralyzed right now because of the political changes going on - no one wants to put their name on some initiative that falls under the anti-corruption radar. This paralysis has been going on for 2-3 years now and I know of an EV battery FDI project that shifted to Indonesia as a result of this paralysis. Even VinGroup and VinGroup tier companies aren't immune.
- ifwinterco 8mo agoParticularly funny because of course Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran are all themselves in Asia
- qingcharles 8mo agoI remember when I first visited Cyprus and realized I was in Asia.
- neonstatic 8mo agoAnd Korea. And Japan. And Bangladesh. At least according to the article. Sure it would be more precise if they said "some countries in South, South East, and East Asia".
- ricksunny 8mo agoeither the business press is very US-bound or parochial, or more likely, it believes its readership is.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago[flagged]
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- idiotsecant 8mo agoSounds like your problem is that management hasn't provided the right tools to be productive.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago[flagged]
- a456463 8mo agoSounds like a yes and you don't know how to manage.
- alexjplant 8mo ago> I know its unpopular to say, but when I have my 2 programmers in office, we get sooo much more done than at home. Someone gets stuck and we don't message/call, we just talk. The technology exists to "just talk" in high-definition audio and video. If somebody isn't asking for help when they're stuck that's a people problem, not a remote work problem. There are several possible reasons for their avoidance; if multiple people are exhibiting the same behavior it could be cultural (specific to your workplace, not the person's upbringing). Using physical presence to force their hand is curing the symptom, not the underlying cause.
- butILoveLife 8mo agoBut it gets solved when we are in-person. We could develop new technology, research culture solutions... or... meet in-person.
- scottious 8mo agoIt's too bad that countries only consider things like this to address a crisis in fuel costs. Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2? I guess it says a lot about what humanity truly values.
- harperlee 8mo agoOne is an immediate impact in your pocket, the other one has an impact lag that you count in years/decades.
- toomuchtodo 8mo agoOptimizing performance management and labor cost controls is more important to those making these decisions than climate change. Misaligned incentives.
- lizknope 8mo agoWe saw how much less pollution there was during the pandemic https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/811019032/why-chinas-air-has-been-cleaner-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/8110190... I worked from home but a few times I needed to go to my parents house during what used to be rush hour. Less than 5% of normal traffic and fuel demand dropped so much that prices were lower. My job went hybrid in 2022 and then return to office full time last year. Everyone hates it. It's a waste of time and resources. Less pollution, less traffic means we don't need to use tax revenue to expand roads and less wear and tear means less repairs. Take it one step further and give tax breaks to businesses that let employees work from home and close physical offices. Then this means less new office construction which can be used for housing to help the housing crisis. It's a win win for everyone except control freak managers.
- devsda 8mo agoSome believe that few organizations are actually real-estate businesses masquerading as tech, restaurant or other types. For those kind of business having full occupancy is more important than worker productivity.
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- glitchc 8mo agoDoes this mean that President Trump is the (unexpected) champion of the remote working crowd? Not the hero we need but the hero we deserve, and all that.
- Tostino 8mo agoAnd all he had to do was make it too expensive to even travel to your usual working location. Truly the hero we deserve.
- yellow_lead 8mo agoI love WFH but I'd also rather we not blow up schools.
- wing-_-nuts 8mo agoI've long said that WFH is an easy win climate change solution that costs nothing, is well loved by everyone who participates (except management). Turns out in times like this, it's also an energy security measure.
- scottious 8mo agoand if you're talking to somebody who doesn't care about climate change just substitute "climate change" with "traffic"
- bloppe 8mo agoIn my experience, everybody cares about climate change. A lot of people just don't like the idea of caring about climate change. But ya, probably best to just call it "traffic" then, and they might be more receptive.
- Waterluvian 8mo agoYeah, I've always seen it as a hot potato issue. I think a lot of people who don't play ball on dealing with climate change aren't deniers, they just want the next guy to have to do the work. It's very, very hard to sell to anyone, "this is going to be incredibly costly and painful for you and you won't enjoy any of the benefits. Your grandkids might."
- qwertygnu 8mo agoI think we saw during covid that we most certainly can see the benefits in our lifetime if we took it more seriously.
- scottious 8mo agoAgreed. I care enough about it to sell my car, stop buying stuff I don't need, give up most meat, and live in a small energy efficient house. However I do know people who really do not care. They may say they care but their actions and voting record show that in fact they don't care (or don't want to make it a real priority). But those same people get very upset when they're stuck in traffic
- recroad 8mo agoWhy are they calling it the "Iran war". It's more like the US/Israeli War. Or more specifically, the US/Israeli assault on Iran.
- Aachen 8mo agoSeems to be convention. If you search for "Russian war", the top hit is "Ukraine war", second hit "Ukraine-Russia war". Most results seem to mention both parties but when brevity is needed, the place where it's taking place seems to take priority over the belligerents Just observing, not saying it's a good or bad linguistic practice
- graemep 8mo agoPoint of view. If you are American its the war with Iran. If you are in most other English speaking countries you would go along with that. That said, I have also seen it referred to as "the Middle East war" and one headline calls it "Trump's war". I wonder what they call it in Iran?
- mlrtime 8mo agoThe question is rhetorical (I hope). It is obvious why it's called a name based on the frame and context.
- bbddg 8mo agoThe US is involved in too many wars to call them all the "US war".
- recroad 8mo agoFair enough. That's a reasonable answer.
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- ex-aws-dude 8mo agoThe government of asia rolled it out?
- realo 8mo ago"Asia" is about 60% of the total world population. I just hope they don't hold a grudge.
- kelseyfrog 8mo agoWe're going to get a 6-day work week, aren't we? :(
- asdff 8mo agoWe'd save even more fuel for the military apparatus if we just slept at work
- aranelsurion 8mo agoIsn't that very fitting with the spirit of the times? Reading 4-day week futurism while working 5 days as you always did, hoping it doesn't get to 6. This one and UBI are the two classics of 2000s optimism and naivety.
- joquarky 8mo agoAnyone who thinks that UBI will ever be Universal has too much faith in their legislators.
- ponector 8mo ago996 is already a thing outside of China.
- 1970-01-01 8mo agoLong-term planning rarely hooks-up with reality until it's too late. It's abundantly clear "Asia" should spend the remaining 20% of their working week directly on ripping away their dependency on fuel.
- cmiles8 8mo agoTerrible headline. “Asia” isn’t a thing apart from a region on a map. These are separate countries doing their own thing. Equally annoying is when folks say “Asian” as an ethnicity. That’s glossing over a whole bunch of different countries that have relatively little to do with each other apart from being in the same general area on the planet.
- nobodyandproud 8mo agoA better and more accurate title: “4-day week, WFH roll-outs in Asia to solve fuel crisis caused by Iran War”.
- andrekandre 8mo agoa better title should be include the word "consider" because in tfa japan and korea for example are not implementing that just yet...
- xvxvx 8mo agoThere’s a special place in hell for people who vocally support working in offices.
- bilsbie 8mo agoI wish we’d all go to four day work weeks. Over My whole life, 5 out of 7 full days of work always felt so daunting and almost dehumanizing. But 4/7 is mentally close to half and just feels way different qualitatively. If you have a job you mostly like, 4 days a week feels really sustainable.
- phantom784 8mo agoI've been working 4/10 schedule (4 days, but 10 hours/day, so I still work 40 hours). It's a HUGE perk, and is the biggest thing keeping me at my current job.
- starkparker 8mo agoHappiest and most productive I've ever been was working 4/10 with a start time at 2 p.m. No morning sluggishness walking into work after lunch, zero-traffic commute, off Fridays so I'd still have a social life far, far away from morning people. Dated a nurse who also worked night shifts and just went on weekday lunch dates or closed down bars.
- jawns 8mo agoCare to share how you snagged that?
- phantom784 8mo agoFirst time around, luck mostly. Happened to get hired by a company that switched to this schedule. I eventually left for higher pay (but gave up my Fridays). Eventually got laid off, and a friend who was still there managed to get me a spot back on her team. By that time, they'd embraced remote work during Covid and decided to keep it permanently. Granted, I could probably be making way more if I were to leave - I took a pay cut when I went back the second time. But at this point in my career, I value the 4/10 and lower stress job (no on-call rotation) more.
- asdff 8mo agoHonestly I think the dirty secret is most peoples work output, especially in white collar work, is not linear. I'm willing to bet if you are even able to quantify your output (I don't believe most people can do that unless they are merely a fungible cog in some production process), you'd get the same exact amount of work done in a year working 4 10s or 4 8s or 4 5s I'd even bet. Think of the classic case of the deadline and what it actually means. Case A, you didn't procrastinate. You took plenty of time to think on the problem, work on a solution at an unhurried pace, put it aside, come back to it, and solve it before it is due. And then, it is done. Case B, you did procrastinate. You have no time at all to think all day, you immediately do and iterate. Four hours later you've sprinted and delivered. And then, it is done, same as it would have been if you didn't procrastinate, maybe 10 fold reduction in time. And that is worst case examples. Typical case is probably somewhere between these A and B, but the point is non linear time to output.
- bilsbie 8mo agoMy friend actually drives more when we switched to wfh. 10 miles to gym and back. 20-30 miles in misc errands and grocery shopping. Yoga class, kids sports.
- Apocryphon 8mo agoDo they live in an exurb
- jjk166 8mo agoDid they not grocery shop when they worked in the office?
- htx80nerd 8mo agoYou could never do this in America because 50x judges would pile on and there'd be 100x lawsuits.
- asdff 8mo agoLabor laws in the US are designed for companies to skirt around the spirit of the law to satisfy the letter of the law. Probably to prevent rioting in the street from making people realize they haven't won the change they thought. Case in point, certain benefits that kick in at 40 hours to you know help people out. Companies responded by saying awe shucks, guess we will only schedule you 39 hours and if you want more you have to work another job. Oh and the law only cares about hours done at one job so doesn't matter if you are working 120 hour weeks you only get part time benefits.
- stephbook 8mo agoThe US air force literally bombs striking union workers (yes, US citizens in the US) when needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
- karel-3d 8mo agoThank you Donald Trump for reducing our dependency on fossil fuels!
- blondie9x 8mo agoWe consume 101 million barrels of oil per day. The amount of oil humans consume per day has doubled since 1980. Is this the way we finally wake up to the urgency of addressing the climate crisis caused by burning fossil fuels?
- gherkinnn 8mo agoTo some, being independent of a finite and politically unstable resource like oil is woke. It was abundantly clear that one of Iran's methods would be to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Sadly, there are people in charge who think the former and ignored the latter.
- gaoshan 8mo agoAsia rolled it out? Wow, imagine the coordination that took to get all of those disparate countries (like, 48 or 49 countries make up Asia) on board with a 4 day work week... and so quickly, too! My homeowners association can't pull off a neighborhood playground cleanup without conflict, disorder and confusion even with 6 months of planning so again, kudos to the 48+ countries of Asia for coming together in this herculean example of speed, unity and coordination.
- joquarky 8mo agoThis is what happens when someone doesn't read the fine article.
- randomNumber7 8mo agoMeanwile germany goes to a 7-day week where people need to generate electricity with muscle power to save the climate.
- sunaookami 8mo agowe only need to connect Merz to a device that generates electricity out of bullshit and we will never have any problems again
- CrzyLngPwd 8mo agoAll of this was caused by a global bully and their handler.
- buzzerbetrayed 8mo agoAgreed. Hard to find a bigger global bully than Iran with all the terrorism they sponsored. And it was great to take out their handler as well.
- CrzyLngPwd 8mo agoStop being a silly troll. lol, the bully, as everyone knows, is the USA, and their handler is Israel.
- penguin_booze 8mo agoOh naw, but what will happen to PrODucTiviTy and ColLaBOraTIoN?!
- blobbers 8mo ago4 day work week would be so rad.
- weirdmantis69 8mo agoWhy don't we (Canada, America I guess) do this too?
- philipkglass 8mo agoBoth Canada and the US are net exporters of oil, and have median wages higher than in the countries adopting these measures, so neither physical shortages nor rising fuel prices are issues as urgent as they are in (e.g.) the Philippines.
- outside1234 8mo agoWill be hilarious if there is another call for WFH just after the bigs forced everyone back
- yalogin 8mo agoAre these countries being very conservative or do their oil supply get impacted by a couple weeks of war? If so that is a very concerning situation
- ebbi 8mo agoSomething I heard from an analyst online (can't find source unfortunately) said that China has a 90 day supply for gas, whereas it's 10 days for Taiwan. Not sure this applies to all fuel types, but it may give an indication of the buffer that some of these major Asian countries are working with.
- xboxnolifes 8mo agoAnd its worth pointing out that China recently stocked up their strategic oil reserves to a significant degree. They would be the very tipping top high end of reserves.
- kombookcha 8mo agoI read somewhere that Australia has 10-14 days of gasoline supply - I have no idea how many countries run this tight and exposed, but it seems to be surprisingly widespread - it's wild how the global economy runs on just-in-time shipping of energy imports.
- lawgimenez 8mo agoThe closest gas station in my area is out of stock already. I'm in Philippines, totally miles away from the war.
- yalogin 8mo agoWow! Thanks for the info. This is much more dire than I had imagined. Hope it stops quickly and normalcy resumes
- erelong 8mo agopaywalled but I found: https://archive.ph/ujecr https://archive.ph/ujecr
- kkfx 8mo agoThe office serves only one purpose: to keep people in the city. The city exists to house the masses who own nothing, who live in rented accommodation, use public transport, buy useless fast tech as status symbols to show off, fast fashion for the same reason, and order takeaway food with all the massive waste of packaging etc. etc. etc. It serves no other purpose and, in particular, it isn't sustainable in terms of scale/natural resources. Whether you like it or not, technology defines the era: when we moved from bronze to iron, those still using bronze were slaughtered by those who had iron. Today, technology dictates Distributism because, like it or not, the "new deal" works through things like domestic p.v. with small-scale storage, an EV integrated in the garage, not skyscrapers and massive solar power plants. Digital tools work well when you HAVE to use them, so you're forced to do it properly or you fail; in other words, by working remotely. In person, steps are "skipped" leaving information gaps and creating inefficiency, and so on and so forth.
- CHB0403085482 8mo agoIn my company, customer service and finance departments still have work-from-home options carried over from 2020. Most use it to take two workdays a week to avoid the commute. I notice the difference in rush-hour traffic; my location is in a dead-end road with only one way in and out.