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Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

270 points by Libertatea 12y ago

showsover 12y ago
This stood out to me: >The Swedish town of Kiruna actually gave up its six-hour working days in 2005 after finding that the increased intensity of work was not a positive. "People have seen there that the intensity of the job increases significantly, with negative effects on health as a consequence," Could that be because we are used to fit our work in 8 hours and work accordingly? Doing 100% of your work in 75% of the time does sound more intense. It might be interesting to see how the stress changes as people get used to a 6h day.
- ddebernardy 12y ago
  This was the big problem in France when they passed the 35h work week with no pay loss. Workers were suddenly expected to do the same output in 4h less, and this increased stress levels quite a bit -- or so I've been told by friends who live there.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    As far as I know, the 40->37 hour shift in Denmark didn't produce similar negative consequences. It's a slightly smaller change (7.5% rather than 12.5% reduction in working hours), but I'm not sure that's the main reason. Perhaps something about how Danish workplaces are structured compared to French ones?
  - yodsanklai 12y ago
    It may be true in some fields, but it's not my experience. A lot of workers in France work more than 35 hours. In particular, most qualified workers (in the software industry for instance) don't have a fixed schedule and overtime isn't paid. To compensate for the 4 hours (going from 39h to 35h) they have more vacation days. It amounts to about 10 days annually depending on the company. Besides, some people are pressured not to take those day off. Several friends of mine work long hours (> 10) and don't take more that 4-5 weeks vacation a year (which is good compared to the US or Asia, but far from the promised 35 hours a week).
- bjourne 12y ago
  That's because they did it wrong. The idea is that you should only work for 6 hours/day, with the same pay you had before, at the same pace. The 25% lost productivity would be compensated for by hiring from Swedens 10-15% pool of unemployed and underemployed people.
  - mongol 12y ago
    I don't get it. Who pays the wages of the newly hired to compensate for lost productivity?
  - MadManE 12y ago
    From the business' point of view, why would I keep paying the same salary for 25% less work? That's insane.
- collyw 12y ago
  The thing is, for myself, and I imagine any others, there are periods when I always have at least one "urgent" task, and I struggle to find the time to get that done. Then there are other times, when there isn't much to do. Averaged out it could probably all be achieved in 6 hours easily, but the changing priorities probably messes that up.
nobbyclark 12y ago
As we move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, it becomes more about managing our energy as individuals, not how many hours we're putting on the clock Tony Schwarz's "Leading at Google" talk on this topic is excellent - http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c
bowlofpetunias 12y ago
And once again the Netherlands shows up on the bottom of that list, so I'll say it once more: we have a high participation of women in the work force, but most of those only work part-time, often in stereotypically "women's jobs" (receptionist, secretary, kindergarten). Makes the stats look much more progressive than reality, even though 32/36 hour work weeks are common.
- iSnow 12y ago
  It's even worse here in Germany where 37.5/40h work weeks are the norm but a lot of people, especially women, only find part-time jobs.
  - pgeorgi 12y ago
    Which goes the other way, too: I'm somewhat of an exotic creature for daring to work part-time in Germany as a male and as a software developer.
- vasquez 12y ago
  Norway is the same. The norm is 37.5 hour work weeks. We're entitled to a 0.5 hour lunch break every day, but that's unpaid unless you're required to spend it on-site.
- mcv 12y ago
  Even so, just the reactions from Dutch people here on HN show that a lot of them are working 4 days a week. I do it too. My brother does it. Many of my neighbours do it. A 4 day work week is particularly popular with parents.
  - glormph 12y ago
    I'd love to work 4d/week, but how does it affect retirement fund buildup?
    - avar 12y ago
      You build it up at 4/5 the rate that you otherwise would have.
sportanova 12y ago
I hope we start seeing more things like this, especially in the US. Does 6 hours a day maximize happiness / productivity? I don't know. Does 8 hours? It's the custom, but I don't know. I think it's almost impossible that 8 hours is the best number across every industry => vertical => company. I'd love to see more experimentation
- dalek_cannes 12y ago
  8 hours for work, 8 for leisure, 8 for sleep and 2 rest days a week seems reasonable, at least mathematically speaking. If it were up to me, I'd include commuting time in those 8 work hours as well, making the number no more than 7 hours.
  - stdbrouw 12y ago
    You're basing your assessment of reasonableness on the aesthetically pleasing properties of symmetry? :-)
    - dalek_cannes 12y ago
      Not really. Eight hours for sleep covers almost everyone's biological requirements. It's hard to decide in what proportion to split the remaining 16. So split it 50-50 unless someone can propose something better!
      - mbrock 12y ago
        That's a bafflingly unfounded and useless "suggestion!" Enormous amounts of people have been working 8 hour shifts for decades -- instead of just guessing that the status quo is probably optimal, why not ask a variety of people if they think two hours more of family/leisure/commute/exercise/learning time would be of any benefit?
    - vidarh 12y ago
      More likely because Robert Owen's original slogan from 1817 has had nearly 200 years to get deeply ingrained in culture...
droidist2 12y ago
I'd rather go to 4 days a week. One less commute.
skrause 12y ago
If someone gave me the chance of a 30-hour work week, I would rather work 4 days of 7,5 hours than 5 days of 6 hours. Just the hassle of getting up early, dressing up for work, commuting etc. isn't really worth it when I'm only going to work 6 hours anyway. I'd rather take an extra day off.
- girvo 12y ago
  I agree entirely. I don't care about saving an hour and a half a day, that doesn't help me much as I lose so much time commuting and getting ready/winding down each day. Being able to work 4 days instead? A god-send. I couldn't think of anything I'd like more. Thankfully, my current job gets me part of the way there -- I work 4 days in the office and one day at home (where I do just as much work but either condensed or spread out during the day depending on the current project workload).
- showsover 12y ago
  Yes, but the article is about 6-hour days, not mix-and-match-hour days. It will be interesting to see what differs from 8-hour days, both in free time, shopping, traffic, and more. Imagine that the 6-hour day is successful, and we can make shifts. Some people go to work from 8 - 2, others from 12-6. That could lighten some traffic jams I venture.
  - espennilsen 12y ago
    Not only traffic jams. Everything will be open until 6, and if you get off at 2 you no longer need to take time off to visit dentist/tax office/bank/etc.
  - blencdr 12y ago
    I'm not sure that a small businesses can afford to make shifts (or 4 days week) if the company must be reachable by a client.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      It won't make any difference from the employers perspective other than that they'll have to do a better job of sharing the knowledge required to do the work across more employees. This is a good thing anyway. The number of fte's remains the same. The number of people fulfilling those fte's goes up but payroll will remain roughly unaffected.
Swizec 12y ago
I work for six hours a day. It fits very nicely into a 7.5 to 8 hour work day with enough rest time to get a proper six hours out. I find that knowingly working only six hours lets me take better breaks because I don't feel like I'm supposed to be working eight hours.
deleted 12y ago
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justnotsure 12y ago
The innovative US economy will make it all irrelevant anyway by introducing more and more work from home jobs. Work from home is almost common in the US and basically non-existent in Europe. I wouldn't trade Swedish 6-hour workday with my American-based 8-hour while working from my coach at home. Somehow socialists are always one step behind Mother Nature, i.e. free markets.
- symmetricsaurus 12y ago
  "Work from home is almost common in the US and basically non-existent in Europe." It is not non-existent in Sweden. "Somehow socialists are always one step behind Mother Nature, i.e. free markets." The free market has nothing to do with "Mother Nature" (animals and plants don't trade at all). Sweden has a free market economy, much like the US. Not exactly sure what is meant by socialists here. Anyone who advocates shorter working hours?
  - mcv 12y ago
    Work from home for 1 day a week is pretty common in Netherland. I've had coworkers who were only in the office for three days a week because they had one day off and one work from home day. Personally I've become less of a fan of working from home, because you see the people you work with less. Particularly the daily standup in Scrum emphasizes the problem with people working from other locations. But if you don't work in a team, working from home is a great option. On socialism, Sweden is generally seen as a really nice mix between the good part of capitalism (free market), and the good parts of socialism (equality, workers' rights).
- Numberwang 12y ago
  Maybe it simply is not possible for us swedes to work from home like that because of our smaller houses? I certainly wouldn't know where to put the chemistry lab or the industrial robots. I barely have room for the mine-shaft.
  - justnotsure 12y ago
    I thought you must have bigger houses? no? I mean how can you claim to have better standard of living and live happier life in a small house without any space?
tim333 12y ago
I wonder how many hours people work naturally if you don't need the money and quite enjoy what you do. Say you're building some software project because you want to do it. I wouldn't mind betting most people would work more than 36 hours a week. I daresay you could make an argument that people should not be forced to work much longer than that just to make ends meet.
bartkappenburg 12y ago
I'm Dutch and I work 4 days a week. My productivity in my startup is the same. This is what researchers say about our average number of hours per week: For example, Dutch workers are on par with American workers in terms of productivity per hour. They pay higher taxes and earn less than Americans. But on average, they work roughly 11 weeks less than their American counterparts each year, have access to government-funded health care, pay little or nothing for a college education, and have far more leisure time than the American. When UNICEF recently ranked 21 industrialized nations by well-being for children, Netherlands was on top and the United States was near the bottom, in 20th place.
- easytiger 12y ago
  For the day off does the entire company not work or do different people take different days off. My reasoning is because if you are working supporting a 24x5 or 24x7 platform then you need full time cover.
  - bartkappenburg 12y ago
    Different people take different days off to ensure continuity. I also found out that during the off day I'm processing the stuff that has happened on the job and this helps me in my focus and deciding what the next steps are. Considering this, my productivity and effectivity both went up.
  - mcv 12y ago
    Friday is by far the most popular day to take off. Many offices are nearly empty on Friday. I'm currently alternating weekly between Fridays and Wednesdays, with my wife taking the opposite day, because we both agree Wednesday's free afternoon would be a great time to do things with our son, but it's also a day with important stuff happening at work. Before that, I had Mondays off. Jobs that need full time cover tend to have a schedule for their employees. And when it's 24x5 or 24x7, you're going to need a schedule anyway, because a regular 40 hour work week doesn't cover that either.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
mcv 12y ago
I love seeing Netherland at the bottom of lists like this: http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/ http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/ I too work 4 days a week, and wouldn't have it any other way. I have had to reject at least one very interesting job offer for it, though. Even when employers know full well that a 4 day work week makes sense, some of them still have trouble accepting it. It makes for weird conversations where they totally agree with me, and still cannot do it.
symmetricsaurus 12y ago
Currently there is not much discussion about a general reduction of the work day to 6 hours in Sweden. If anything politicians are pushing for more work (though not longer days). Lower sick pay, later retirement and conversion of part time jobs to full time have been implemented or proposed. (Also, it is not Volvo Cars that is downsizing, it is Volvo Group).
- pathy 12y ago
  MP just decided to go into the election with a 35 hour work day proposal. I also believe V and F! are in support of a work hour reduction to varying degrees. So there is definitely a push to reduce the work day (Though possibly not to 6 hours).
  - symmetricsaurus 12y ago
    Forgot about the recent (mp) proposal. Maybe there will be a new debate on the length of a work day/week in time for the election then.
    - mbrock 12y ago
      It's been a long standing point on the MP party program, although perhaps an often neglected one.
homakov 12y ago
Why does government set N hours at all? It's must be up to business! E.g., if I have a software company, I want my employees to work 20 hours a week. Isn't it obviously better way for everyone?
- d55 12y ago
  Then you'd have the 60 hour work week pretty quick.
  - homakov 12y ago
    I'd quit. I'm a specialist and will easily find another job.
    - Loughla 12y ago
      You seem not to understand the depth of that statement. It's not that one company would have excess hours; all of them would. So, you would be free to find a new position. . . at another company with a 60 hour work week. Look at the history of the labor movement. Those in power tended to abuse those that weren't; long hours, unsafe conditions, etc. Now, unless you work in a coal mine or foundry, we can count out unsafe work conditions. That really leaves one other option. . . . . .
      - Sharlin 12y ago
        And it's not just about abuse of power - 60-hour-workweek companites would simply rather quickly outcompete those that had 40 hour weeks, except in rare cases.
      - homakov 12y ago
        This is so senseless i dont know how to respond. It is like saying legal guns will increase the crime rate because they can kill. Companies compete to get specialists (look at how many perks average startup or google offers). Low skilled jobs? Who cares about them.
Tenoke 12y ago
I wonder if the government workers, who will still work 8 hours a day will have a loss of productivity due to a conscious attempt to help the move to six-hour workdays.
wobbleblob 12y ago
> "though the United States is an outlier here, working both long and hard" The article conflates productivity with 'working hard'. Productivity is a measure of how much value is produced ('money is made') per hour of work. A bulldozer operator working an 8 hour day to move a few tons of dirt is more productive than a worker who needs many 12 hour work days to move the same amount of dirt with a shovel and wheelbarrow. A trader at a bank who moves millions of shares with a phone call and a few mouse clicks is more productive than the bulldozer operator. Does this mean the banker works hardest and the guy with the shovel the least hard? A high productivity per hour in a country means fewer ditches are dug using shovels, and more credit default swaps are sold. It doesn't mean people are working harder. It also doesn't necessarily mean the shovel digging country is organizing its economy less efficiently. Where the cost of labor is a few dollar per day, investing in a bulldozer might never pay off. Hiring 100 guys with shovels and wheelbarrows could be more efficient than hiring one guy with a bulldozer.
- marvin 12y ago
  They probably chose a poor word ("hard") for high productivity, but apart from that the point is sound: The US works a long longer hours with fewer holidays than many European countries. And there's good reason to believe that the results/hour coefficient is lower for each individual worker regardless, when the "hour" part of the equation is higher.
  - lloeki 12y ago
    > results/hour coefficient I think maybe we can make a bold move and call that metric 'efficiency'.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    I had a boss once who had done the same role in SV and in a subsidiary of BT (which still has a lot of civil service type rules extra privilege holidays) His comment when asked was he got as much work out of the teams in the usa who had 2 weeks annual leave as he did in the uk with the team having 5 weeks holiday.
  - wobbleblob 12y ago
Shivetya 12y ago
In other words, government workers. People not truly beholden to anyone. An entity that cannot lose money can make stupid decisions and generally get by with them because apathy of the public is an exploitable resource. So the title is wholly misleading. I guess politicians of a certain style in Sweden need to lock in the public employee vote? Call me when innovation starts and not grand standing and vote buying
- dlange 12y ago
  Ignorant comment, trying to apply one's own bias or perspective of government work in his country to that in a completely different (social/cultural/economic) entity.. Imagine if your Stanford grads picked government work to better their local society rather then a profit-driven startup then you begin to see another viewpoint
furyg3 12y ago
I moved from the US (high on the list) to the Netherlands (bottom of the list) a while ago. Different jobs and sectors vary, but the theme I can confirm is that the Dutch feel more productive, generally (I work in software development). In very broad terms, the Dutch are more likely to plan and stick to those plans. Personal time and time off are valued, so you need to be efficient in your working hours. You can't really expect someone to respond to your emails after working hours. Having to work in the weekends at all is a sign of bad project management, and should be exceptional. Meetings have agendas which are sent out ahead of time. Americans are generally more optimistic, which makes for worse time management and planning, which leads to overtime and stress. Being seen at work somehow equals working, and internal guilt for not working efficiently while at work leads to more weekend work. There's a big focus how much you've 'worked' this week. Interruption is common for things which could be structured. To be honest, it's been pretty difficult to adjust, but the payoff is huge. Actual free time after work, real weekends, and longer vacations are all possible because people plan... whereas friends back home are often unable to plan vacations because they/their boss don't know how busy they'll be in 5 months.
- comrade1 12y ago
  I have the same experience in Switzerland. I moved from the u.s. (s.f., boston, dc, socal) and despite working less we get a lot more done than in the u.s. We have an 8.5 hour workday in Switzerland which we strictly stick to - we get comp time if you work over. In the u.s. we were pretty regularly working 10 hour days and 12 wasn't unusual, but we were wasting so much time. A good example is meetings - most people get to the meeting 5 minutes before the start time. As soon as enough people arrive (usually 5 minutes before the start time or right at the start time) the meeting starts. If the meeting doesn't start by 10 minutes after because someone is missing it's cancelled. There's no smalltalk at the beginning, no socializing, no standing around stuffing your face... Our company was bought by an American company and some of the Swiss staff transferred to the u.s. for awhile. Meetings were one of the most confusing changes for them - they'd be waiting in the conference room with no one showing up, then a few stragglers 10 minutes after the start time, and then every stands around talking about non-work stuff like they were at a high-school mixer. One colleague asked to have them start the meeting the first few time but eventually gave up and just started doing it the American way.
lauriswtf 12y ago
The same chart as in article, just visualized on a map: https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview
cabalamat 12y ago
A 6-hour workday would be 30 hours/week. If we're going to reduce the working week, then instead of spreading that over 5 days, why not work a 4-day week (7.5 hours/day)? That would reduce commuting congestion by 20%, and make everyone who doesn't like spending an hour a day in a traffic jam happy.
- mkempe 12y ago
  The purpose is not to diminish time wasted by commuting. In many European cities and regions one does not commute for hours every day. For instance, my brother lives in a 2000 year-old city and walks to work -- it takes him 2 minutes. When I lived in London it took me 15-20 minutes to get to work, with the tube. In a Swiss city before that, 15 minutes driving. And for my job before that, 4 minutes biking.
  - fetbaffe 12y ago
    However not the case in Göteborg.
    - mkempe 12y ago
      The Swedish average commute is under 25 minutes (excluding the top 5% who travel an hour or more). [1] My friends' commute in Stockholm includes the walk to drop off kids at the local school. Is Göteborg worse than the rest of the country? [1] http://jamda.ub.gu.se/handle/1/738 http://jamda.ub.gu.se/handle/1/738
      - fetbaffe 12y ago
        It's not hours that can be the case as in other countries, but I would not describe it as 2 minutes either. 25 minutes sounds reasonable. Of course it's depends how lucky you are. When I lived in Stockholm for a short while, I had an 50 minutes commute from the outer parts of Stockholm (still within city limits) to the city, first by buss then subway. In Göteborg, if you need to pass Göta älv (Göta river) in rush hour, good luck with that. It is the main bottleneck in Göteborg with only two bridges and one tunnel, all of the jammed. Sure buses have their own lane so that runs faster, but the nightmarish slow tram is just painful, half the speed of a subway.
baoyu 12y ago
A possible issue with the experiment—the Hawthorne effect [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
erikb 12y ago
Germany seems to be unrealistically low in the diagram. It is very untypical for people here to work less than 40 hours per week and lunch hour is not included in the work time (means you actually stay 45 hours at work in a usual contract).
- vidarh 12y ago
  The article points out that Germany is pulled down by a lot of people working part-time jobs.
  - erikb 12y ago
    Yeah but these shouldn't be considered in such kind of statistics, right? Doesn't make sense to compare part-time workers and full-time workers when a country wants to limit their numbers of full-time hours.
atmosx 12y ago
Greece is second in the list of most working hours per year and still heavily indebted. The price of political corruption.
Kiro 12y ago
Why isn't it just standard to be paid by the hour? A fixed hours-per-week seems backwards.
- bird_in_hand 12y ago
  Some workers are pretty interchangeable. If Sarah can assemble parts at the same rate as Sven, then the employer shouldn't care who does it, right? However, for specialized positions or ones that are knowledge-based, this doesn't work. Sarah is a lawyer who's been working on a case for the past 3 months, so it will take her much less time to complete the next step than Sven, who has been working on something else. So in that case, the employer would be pretty unhappy about Sarah wanting to work 30 hours a week, even if Sven is willing to pick up the extra 10. Software developers with the same skills working on the same product are generally closer to the former than the latter, but it depends. The other thing is that there are many fixed costs associated with hiring an employee. They need a desk and office space and computer, they need health insurance/unemployment, you need HR to manage all of this. So it ends up being much more expensive (and complicated) to have two part time employees than one fulltime one. If most benefits were decoupled from employment, a lot (but not all) of these costs go away.
chrisgd 12y ago
The list of countries is so strange to look at with so many countries that have low GDP / capita or recent depressions / austerity forced on them and . . . The US near the top
fetbaffe 12y ago
The problem is not six or eight hours working day, the problem is funding. What I understand the red-green ruling alliance has not put away any funding for this reform, so as usual Göteborg flush their public economy down the toilet and which of course hurts the smaller cities in the same region where they share public programs with Göteborg. Same old story with this city. And is going to be required to hire more employees because of regulations on how many available workers per shift on typical government job. Göteborg has of 2013 a debt of 37,5 billion SEK. On top of that it has 13,5 billions SEK in unfunded penions debts. There is a reason why Göteborg, or Röteborg (Rottenburg) in "folkmun", has one of the highest taxes in Sweden - poor management.
terranstyler 12y ago
It is not the duty of the lawmaker but of the contracting parties (= employer and employee) to define the amount of work hours per day. There are many variables in the process: - Demand for money of the employee (poor father of five vs. rich single) - Demand for work of the employer (company needs a helping hand vs company needs to recruit a new team) - Scale effect of product (does one additional hour or man lead to one additional unit produced?, compare laying bricks vs programming) These variables are unknown to the lawmaker for each specific instance, so any a-priori determination of the amount of work hours per week cannot be optimal.
- mbrock 12y ago
  There are pretty severe network effects in place, though, as well as obvious imbalance of power (the wage worker is, almost by definition, relatively poor, indebted, etc). Working hours have always been a big part of labor politics. The individual contractual perspective is not the whole story.
  - terranstyler 12y ago
    I don't know what network effects you mean. But I agree with the imbalance of power, at least in the common case. However, the more specific and difficult your job is, the more the power leans towards the employee. Still, I believe any kind of power inequality will manifest itself somewhere whether you fix working hours or not.
    - mbrock 12y ago
      Almost every time I've talked to someone about reducing their working hours, the most serious reason not to has been something like "but everyone else is working 8 hours." It's not like the "invisible hand" simply discovered the optimum life arrangement for all workers everywhere.
- SEMW 12y ago
  > It is not the duty of the lawmaker but of the contracting parties (= employer and employee) to define the amount of work hours per day. Who mentioned lawmakers? I only see two contracting parties here: the municipal government in Gothenburg, and a group of its employees. This idea that there's a short and slippery slope between 'City municipality experiments to find the most efficient working day for its employees' and 'GOVERNMENT BANS ANYONE WORKING MORE THAN SIX HOURS' is, ISTM, dubious.
crazy1van 12y ago
So what is the optimal work day for productivity? Many folks here believe it's a (proven?) fact that less than 40 is actually more productive. However, surely 40 is more productive than 0. So, what is the magic number? Personally, I don't think this is that simple. Heck, humans just aren't that simple. I think some people and some professions are more productive above 40 and others are more productive under 40. That's why I'm in favor of a system that leaves this as a point of negotiation between the employee and employer. Just like there is no one-size fits all salary for, say, a java developer with 5 years experience (how fast is he? how buggy is his code? can he work independently? etc), why would expect to find a one size fits all for work day length?
- capisce 12y ago
  Productivity is not the only concern, individual preference should also be accounted for. Someone might want to sacrifice 10 hours a week for 20 % less pay for instance (productivity vs hours worked is more than likely not linear). People should be more free to negotiate such arrangements. Basic income could give them the leverage needed to have a stronger negotiating position - right now employers usually have a way stronger hand.
- kourt 12y ago
  It seems that 40 hours is basically optimal for turn of the 20th century factory work. I've seen several references[0] that the optimum for knowledge work is 35 hours, but I'd LOVE a detailed citation. While you are correct that people vary, many managers seem extremely ignorant of 200 years of research on this topic and start from grossly wrong initial conditions (e.g., "40 hours is the bare minimum and should be considered slacking: a professional works until the job is done and we really expect 50 hours; we prefer passionate people, which starts at around 55 hours"). It would be far better for almost everyone if the typical standard expectation were based on a typical standard human, not on outliers (e.g., people who carry the DEC2 mutation and need only 6 hours sleep). Look at it another way: the 75% of the workforce who is average would stop burning themselves out to the point of negative productivity, and supermen like yourself would be truly recognized for your outstanding contributions, rather than just "meh, meets expectations". [0] e.g. http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-productivity-2756161 http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-productivity-275...
thewpguy 12y ago
I work from home, and I find if I eliminate distraction and go zone-in coding, then six hours are a lot more productive then 8 hours of fooling around. Organization is key (not hours).
marincounty 12y ago
San Francsico local 6 proposed a 10hr/4 day work week; Sat- Mon off. The electricians voted it down. My dad never understood why. As a kid, neither did I understand why anyone wouldn't want hours like this. By the way, getting to the job site is 60% of the hassle, the rest is boring construction. I honestly think all jobs would benefit from just getting rid of Mondays? Two days off is just not enough time; unless you have no life and live through your job. The problem is many of us do not even remotely like our job, or our felllow workers. We hate coming in and seeing the the same people--especially the one's who haven't realized this is no dress rehearsal. We were born and we die--it's a simple equation. A great line I heard out of a movie, 'Give me a hair cut that says I go to a job I hate, only to adorn my spoild wife with consumer crap, and keep my ungrateful kids adorned in expensive jeans for the next thirty years; until I get the courage to blow my head off with a shotgun.' Extreme statement, but rang true with me. Oh yea, to every girlfriend who claimed to love their job-- Great--get your MBA. Put on the pants suit. Climb the ladder. It's my turn to stay home and take care of the spawn. Me and the kids want electronic toys. It's O.K. if your working late, or go to china for Apple. Just send us the checks! We'll be fine. (In all honestly, I think people(especially Americans) want what they can't have, and don't know when they are offered a good deal.)
sethbannon 12y ago
For what it's worth, here's a list of countries ranked by worker productivity (measured by GDP per hour worked): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...
gyardley 12y ago
I wonder how much the length of the work week is related to cultural belief in upward mobility, either for yourself or for your children. When I was a kid, my own family - mostly blue-collar, unionized workers - would've only supported a reduction in the work week if that meant they could start getting overtime sooner. They didn't have to, because they were unionized, but they worked as much as they could. They'd happily work holidays like Christmas because it meant they got triple-time. If you gave them a six-hour day at the same rate of pay, they'd celebrate - and then go looking for a part-time job. They did this because they wanted a better life for themselves and their children - not too many six-year-old working class kids had a TRS-80 in their bedroom, but I did. If they didn't believe a better life for themselves or their children was particularly possible, perhaps they would've wanted to work less - but that cultural trait was such a big part of their lives, they would've been entirely different people without it. I have a hard time even picturing it. Because of this, when I read articles like the one linked, they seem so strange - I'm not judging, not at all, but it really highlights how different cultures are wired completely differently.
- arjie 12y ago
  Father-son income elasticity is higher in the US than in most of Europe. This means that the income of the son more strongly follows the income of the father. The difference you speak of may be due to the fact that making lots of money more strongly determines whether your son will too.
NYCHacker 12y ago
Seriously want to move to Europe now. As a U.S. citizen and web developer, how hard is this to do? Can I just get a remote job here and then move? What are the VISA issues? My biggest concern is that my salary won't be enough to pay my ~$1k/month student loan debt.
mathattack 12y ago
I found the Netherlands numbers strange, but then worked on a Dutch project. They were very industrious, and planned things well in advance, including avoiding work on Fridays or during their sacred vacations. If you can pull off 1400 hours in a year, god bless!

270 points by Libertatea 12y ago

This stood out to me: >The Swedish town of Kiruna actually gave up its six-hour working days in 2005 after finding that the increased intensity of work was not a positive. "People have seen there that the intensity of the job increases significantly, with negative effects on health as a consequence," Could that be because we are used to fit our work in 8 hours and work accordingly? Doing 100% of your work in 75% of the time does sound more intense. It might be interesting to see how the stress changes as people get used to a 6h day.

ddebernardy 12y ago
This was the big problem in France when they passed the 35h work week with no pay loss. Workers were suddenly expected to do the same output in 4h less, and this increased stress levels quite a bit -- or so I've been told by friends who live there.
- _delirium 12y ago
  As far as I know, the 40->37 hour shift in Denmark didn't produce similar negative consequences. It's a slightly smaller change (7.5% rather than 12.5% reduction in working hours), but I'm not sure that's the main reason. Perhaps something about how Danish workplaces are structured compared to French ones?
- yodsanklai 12y ago
  It may be true in some fields, but it's not my experience. A lot of workers in France work more than 35 hours. In particular, most qualified workers (in the software industry for instance) don't have a fixed schedule and overtime isn't paid. To compensate for the 4 hours (going from 39h to 35h) they have more vacation days. It amounts to about 10 days annually depending on the company. Besides, some people are pressured not to take those day off. Several friends of mine work long hours (> 10) and don't take more that 4-5 weeks vacation a year (which is good compared to the US or Asia, but far from the promised 35 hours a week).
bjourne 12y ago
That's because they did it wrong. The idea is that you should only work for 6 hours/day, with the same pay you had before, at the same pace. The 25% lost productivity would be compensated for by hiring from Swedens 10-15% pool of unemployed and underemployed people.
- mongol 12y ago
  I don't get it. Who pays the wages of the newly hired to compensate for lost productivity?
- MadManE 12y ago
  From the business' point of view, why would I keep paying the same salary for 25% less work? That's insane.
collyw 12y ago
The thing is, for myself, and I imagine any others, there are periods when I always have at least one "urgent" task, and I struggle to find the time to get that done. Then there are other times, when there isn't much to do. Averaged out it could probably all be achieved in 6 hours easily, but the changing priorities probably messes that up.

nobbyclark 12y ago

As we move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, it becomes more about managing our energy as individuals, not how many hours we're putting on the clock Tony Schwarz's "Leading at Google" talk on this topic is excellent - http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c http://youtu.be/tke6X2eME3c

bowlofpetunias 12y ago

And once again the Netherlands shows up on the bottom of that list, so I'll say it once more: we have a high participation of women in the work force, but most of those only work part-time, often in stereotypically "women's jobs" (receptionist, secretary, kindergarten). Makes the stats look much more progressive than reality, even though 32/36 hour work weeks are common.

iSnow 12y ago
It's even worse here in Germany where 37.5/40h work weeks are the norm but a lot of people, especially women, only find part-time jobs.
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  Which goes the other way, too: I'm somewhat of an exotic creature for daring to work part-time in Germany as a male and as a software developer.
vasquez 12y ago
Norway is the same. The norm is 37.5 hour work weeks. We're entitled to a 0.5 hour lunch break every day, but that's unpaid unless you're required to spend it on-site.
mcv 12y ago
Even so, just the reactions from Dutch people here on HN show that a lot of them are working 4 days a week. I do it too. My brother does it. Many of my neighbours do it. A 4 day work week is particularly popular with parents.
- glormph 12y ago
  I'd love to work 4d/week, but how does it affect retirement fund buildup?
  - avar 12y ago
    You build it up at 4/5 the rate that you otherwise would have.

sportanova 12y ago

I hope we start seeing more things like this, especially in the US. Does 6 hours a day maximize happiness / productivity? I don't know. Does 8 hours? It's the custom, but I don't know. I think it's almost impossible that 8 hours is the best number across every industry => vertical => company. I'd love to see more experimentation

dalek_cannes 12y ago
8 hours for work, 8 for leisure, 8 for sleep and 2 rest days a week seems reasonable, at least mathematically speaking. If it were up to me, I'd include commuting time in those 8 work hours as well, making the number no more than 7 hours.
- stdbrouw 12y ago
  You're basing your assessment of reasonableness on the aesthetically pleasing properties of symmetry? :-)
  - dalek_cannes 12y ago
    Not really. Eight hours for sleep covers almost everyone's biological requirements. It's hard to decide in what proportion to split the remaining 16. So split it 50-50 unless someone can propose something better!
    - mbrock 12y ago
      That's a bafflingly unfounded and useless "suggestion!" Enormous amounts of people have been working 8 hour shifts for decades -- instead of just guessing that the status quo is probably optimal, why not ask a variety of people if they think two hours more of family/leisure/commute/exercise/learning time would be of any benefit?
  - vidarh 12y ago
    More likely because Robert Owen's original slogan from 1817 has had nearly 200 years to get deeply ingrained in culture...

droidist2 12y ago

I'd rather go to 4 days a week. One less commute.

skrause 12y ago

If someone gave me the chance of a 30-hour work week, I would rather work 4 days of 7,5 hours than 5 days of 6 hours. Just the hassle of getting up early, dressing up for work, commuting etc. isn't really worth it when I'm only going to work 6 hours anyway. I'd rather take an extra day off.

girvo 12y ago
I agree entirely. I don't care about saving an hour and a half a day, that doesn't help me much as I lose so much time commuting and getting ready/winding down each day. Being able to work 4 days instead? A god-send. I couldn't think of anything I'd like more. Thankfully, my current job gets me part of the way there -- I work 4 days in the office and one day at home (where I do just as much work but either condensed or spread out during the day depending on the current project workload).
showsover 12y ago
Yes, but the article is about 6-hour days, not mix-and-match-hour days. It will be interesting to see what differs from 8-hour days, both in free time, shopping, traffic, and more. Imagine that the 6-hour day is successful, and we can make shifts. Some people go to work from 8 - 2, others from 12-6. That could lighten some traffic jams I venture.
- espennilsen 12y ago
  Not only traffic jams. Everything will be open until 6, and if you get off at 2 you no longer need to take time off to visit dentist/tax office/bank/etc.
- blencdr 12y ago
  I'm not sure that a small businesses can afford to make shifts (or 4 days week) if the company must be reachable by a client.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It won't make any difference from the employers perspective other than that they'll have to do a better job of sharing the knowledge required to do the work across more employees. This is a good thing anyway. The number of fte's remains the same. The number of people fulfilling those fte's goes up but payroll will remain roughly unaffected.

Swizec 12y ago

I work for six hours a day. It fits very nicely into a 7.5 to 8 hour work day with enough rest time to get a proper six hours out. I find that knowingly working only six hours lets me take better breaks because I don't feel like I'm supposed to be working eight hours.

deleted 12y ago

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justnotsure 12y ago

The innovative US economy will make it all irrelevant anyway by introducing more and more work from home jobs. Work from home is almost common in the US and basically non-existent in Europe. I wouldn't trade Swedish 6-hour workday with my American-based 8-hour while working from my coach at home. Somehow socialists are always one step behind Mother Nature, i.e. free markets.

symmetricsaurus 12y ago
"Work from home is almost common in the US and basically non-existent in Europe." It is not non-existent in Sweden. "Somehow socialists are always one step behind Mother Nature, i.e. free markets." The free market has nothing to do with "Mother Nature" (animals and plants don't trade at all). Sweden has a free market economy, much like the US. Not exactly sure what is meant by socialists here. Anyone who advocates shorter working hours?
- mcv 12y ago
  Work from home for 1 day a week is pretty common in Netherland. I've had coworkers who were only in the office for three days a week because they had one day off and one work from home day. Personally I've become less of a fan of working from home, because you see the people you work with less. Particularly the daily standup in Scrum emphasizes the problem with people working from other locations. But if you don't work in a team, working from home is a great option. On socialism, Sweden is generally seen as a really nice mix between the good part of capitalism (free market), and the good parts of socialism (equality, workers' rights).
Numberwang 12y ago
Maybe it simply is not possible for us swedes to work from home like that because of our smaller houses? I certainly wouldn't know where to put the chemistry lab or the industrial robots. I barely have room for the mine-shaft.
- justnotsure 12y ago
  I thought you must have bigger houses? no? I mean how can you claim to have better standard of living and live happier life in a small house without any space?

tim333 12y ago

I wonder how many hours people work naturally if you don't need the money and quite enjoy what you do. Say you're building some software project because you want to do it. I wouldn't mind betting most people would work more than 36 hours a week. I daresay you could make an argument that people should not be forced to work much longer than that just to make ends meet.

bartkappenburg 12y ago

I'm Dutch and I work 4 days a week. My productivity in my startup is the same. This is what researchers say about our average number of hours per week: For example, Dutch workers are on par with American workers in terms of productivity per hour. They pay higher taxes and earn less than Americans. But on average, they work roughly 11 weeks less than their American counterparts each year, have access to government-funded health care, pay little or nothing for a college education, and have far more leisure time than the American. When UNICEF recently ranked 21 industrialized nations by well-being for children, Netherlands was on top and the United States was near the bottom, in 20th place.

easytiger 12y ago
For the day off does the entire company not work or do different people take different days off. My reasoning is because if you are working supporting a 24x5 or 24x7 platform then you need full time cover.
- bartkappenburg 12y ago
  Different people take different days off to ensure continuity. I also found out that during the off day I'm processing the stuff that has happened on the job and this helps me in my focus and deciding what the next steps are. Considering this, my productivity and effectivity both went up.
- mcv 12y ago
  Friday is by far the most popular day to take off. Many offices are nearly empty on Friday. I'm currently alternating weekly between Fridays and Wednesdays, with my wife taking the opposite day, because we both agree Wednesday's free afternoon would be a great time to do things with our son, but it's also a day with important stuff happening at work. Before that, I had Mondays off. Jobs that need full time cover tend to have a schedule for their employees. And when it's 24x5 or 24x7, you're going to need a schedule anyway, because a regular 40 hour work week doesn't cover that either.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

mcv 12y ago

I love seeing Netherland at the bottom of lists like this: http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/ http://cf.datawrapper.de/mv47r/3/ I too work 4 days a week, and wouldn't have it any other way. I have had to reject at least one very interesting job offer for it, though. Even when employers know full well that a 4 day work week makes sense, some of them still have trouble accepting it. It makes for weird conversations where they totally agree with me, and still cannot do it.

symmetricsaurus 12y ago

Currently there is not much discussion about a general reduction of the work day to 6 hours in Sweden. If anything politicians are pushing for more work (though not longer days). Lower sick pay, later retirement and conversion of part time jobs to full time have been implemented or proposed. (Also, it is not Volvo Cars that is downsizing, it is Volvo Group).

pathy 12y ago
MP just decided to go into the election with a 35 hour work day proposal. I also believe V and F! are in support of a work hour reduction to varying degrees. So there is definitely a push to reduce the work day (Though possibly not to 6 hours).
- symmetricsaurus 12y ago
  Forgot about the recent (mp) proposal. Maybe there will be a new debate on the length of a work day/week in time for the election then.
  - mbrock 12y ago
    It's been a long standing point on the MP party program, although perhaps an often neglected one.

homakov 12y ago

Why does government set N hours at all? It's must be up to business! E.g., if I have a software company, I want my employees to work 20 hours a week. Isn't it obviously better way for everyone?

d55 12y ago
Then you'd have the 60 hour work week pretty quick.
- homakov 12y ago
  I'd quit. I'm a specialist and will easily find another job.
  - Loughla 12y ago
    You seem not to understand the depth of that statement. It's not that one company would have excess hours; all of them would. So, you would be free to find a new position. . . at another company with a 60 hour work week. Look at the history of the labor movement. Those in power tended to abuse those that weren't; long hours, unsafe conditions, etc. Now, unless you work in a coal mine or foundry, we can count out unsafe work conditions. That really leaves one other option. . . . . .
    - Sharlin 12y ago
      And it's not just about abuse of power - 60-hour-workweek companites would simply rather quickly outcompete those that had 40 hour weeks, except in rare cases.
    - homakov 12y ago
      This is so senseless i dont know how to respond. It is like saying legal guns will increase the crime rate because they can kill. Companies compete to get specialists (look at how many perks average startup or google offers). Low skilled jobs? Who cares about them.

Tenoke 12y ago

I wonder if the government workers, who will still work 8 hours a day will have a loss of productivity due to a conscious attempt to help the move to six-hour workdays.

wobbleblob 12y ago

> "though the United States is an outlier here, working both long and hard" The article conflates productivity with 'working hard'. Productivity is a measure of how much value is produced ('money is made') per hour of work. A bulldozer operator working an 8 hour day to move a few tons of dirt is more productive than a worker who needs many 12 hour work days to move the same amount of dirt with a shovel and wheelbarrow. A trader at a bank who moves millions of shares with a phone call and a few mouse clicks is more productive than the bulldozer operator. Does this mean the banker works hardest and the guy with the shovel the least hard? A high productivity per hour in a country means fewer ditches are dug using shovels, and more credit default swaps are sold. It doesn't mean people are working harder. It also doesn't necessarily mean the shovel digging country is organizing its economy less efficiently. Where the cost of labor is a few dollar per day, investing in a bulldozer might never pay off. Hiring 100 guys with shovels and wheelbarrows could be more efficient than hiring one guy with a bulldozer.

marvin 12y ago
They probably chose a poor word ("hard") for high productivity, but apart from that the point is sound: The US works a long longer hours with fewer holidays than many European countries. And there's good reason to believe that the results/hour coefficient is lower for each individual worker regardless, when the "hour" part of the equation is higher.
- lloeki 12y ago
  > results/hour coefficient I think maybe we can make a bold move and call that metric 'efficiency'.
- walshemj 12y ago
  I had a boss once who had done the same role in SV and in a subsidiary of BT (which still has a lot of civil service type rules extra privilege holidays) His comment when asked was he got as much work out of the teams in the usa who had 2 weeks annual leave as he did in the uk with the team having 5 weeks holiday.
- wobbleblob 12y ago

Shivetya 12y ago

In other words, government workers. People not truly beholden to anyone. An entity that cannot lose money can make stupid decisions and generally get by with them because apathy of the public is an exploitable resource. So the title is wholly misleading. I guess politicians of a certain style in Sweden need to lock in the public employee vote? Call me when innovation starts and not grand standing and vote buying

dlange 12y ago
Ignorant comment, trying to apply one's own bias or perspective of government work in his country to that in a completely different (social/cultural/economic) entity.. Imagine if your Stanford grads picked government work to better their local society rather then a profit-driven startup then you begin to see another viewpoint

furyg3 12y ago

I moved from the US (high on the list) to the Netherlands (bottom of the list) a while ago. Different jobs and sectors vary, but the theme I can confirm is that the Dutch feel more productive, generally (I work in software development). In very broad terms, the Dutch are more likely to plan and stick to those plans. Personal time and time off are valued, so you need to be efficient in your working hours. You can't really expect someone to respond to your emails after working hours. Having to work in the weekends at all is a sign of bad project management, and should be exceptional. Meetings have agendas which are sent out ahead of time. Americans are generally more optimistic, which makes for worse time management and planning, which leads to overtime and stress. Being seen at work somehow equals working, and internal guilt for not working efficiently while at work leads to more weekend work. There's a big focus how much you've 'worked' this week. Interruption is common for things which could be structured. To be honest, it's been pretty difficult to adjust, but the payoff is huge. Actual free time after work, real weekends, and longer vacations are all possible because people plan... whereas friends back home are often unable to plan vacations because they/their boss don't know how busy they'll be in 5 months.

comrade1 12y ago
I have the same experience in Switzerland. I moved from the u.s. (s.f., boston, dc, socal) and despite working less we get a lot more done than in the u.s. We have an 8.5 hour workday in Switzerland which we strictly stick to - we get comp time if you work over. In the u.s. we were pretty regularly working 10 hour days and 12 wasn't unusual, but we were wasting so much time. A good example is meetings - most people get to the meeting 5 minutes before the start time. As soon as enough people arrive (usually 5 minutes before the start time or right at the start time) the meeting starts. If the meeting doesn't start by 10 minutes after because someone is missing it's cancelled. There's no smalltalk at the beginning, no socializing, no standing around stuffing your face... Our company was bought by an American company and some of the Swiss staff transferred to the u.s. for awhile. Meetings were one of the most confusing changes for them - they'd be waiting in the conference room with no one showing up, then a few stragglers 10 minutes after the start time, and then every stands around talking about non-work stuff like they were at a high-school mixer. One colleague asked to have them start the meeting the first few time but eventually gave up and just started doing it the American way.

lauriswtf 12y ago

The same chart as in article, just visualized on a map: https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview https://datawrapper.de/chart/85fbQ/preview

cabalamat 12y ago

A 6-hour workday would be 30 hours/week. If we're going to reduce the working week, then instead of spreading that over 5 days, why not work a 4-day week (7.5 hours/day)? That would reduce commuting congestion by 20%, and make everyone who doesn't like spending an hour a day in a traffic jam happy.

mkempe 12y ago
The purpose is not to diminish time wasted by commuting. In many European cities and regions one does not commute for hours every day. For instance, my brother lives in a 2000 year-old city and walks to work -- it takes him 2 minutes. When I lived in London it took me 15-20 minutes to get to work, with the tube. In a Swiss city before that, 15 minutes driving. And for my job before that, 4 minutes biking.
- fetbaffe 12y ago
  However not the case in Göteborg.
  - mkempe 12y ago
    The Swedish average commute is under 25 minutes (excluding the top 5% who travel an hour or more). [1] My friends' commute in Stockholm includes the walk to drop off kids at the local school. Is Göteborg worse than the rest of the country? [1] http://jamda.ub.gu.se/handle/1/738 http://jamda.ub.gu.se/handle/1/738
    - fetbaffe 12y ago
      It's not hours that can be the case as in other countries, but I would not describe it as 2 minutes either. 25 minutes sounds reasonable. Of course it's depends how lucky you are. When I lived in Stockholm for a short while, I had an 50 minutes commute from the outer parts of Stockholm (still within city limits) to the city, first by buss then subway. In Göteborg, if you need to pass Göta älv (Göta river) in rush hour, good luck with that. It is the main bottleneck in Göteborg with only two bridges and one tunnel, all of the jammed. Sure buses have their own lane so that runs faster, but the nightmarish slow tram is just painful, half the speed of a subway.

baoyu 12y ago

A possible issue with the experiment—the Hawthorne effect [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

erikb 12y ago

Germany seems to be unrealistically low in the diagram. It is very untypical for people here to work less than 40 hours per week and lunch hour is not included in the work time (means you actually stay 45 hours at work in a usual contract).

vidarh 12y ago
The article points out that Germany is pulled down by a lot of people working part-time jobs.
- erikb 12y ago
  Yeah but these shouldn't be considered in such kind of statistics, right? Doesn't make sense to compare part-time workers and full-time workers when a country wants to limit their numbers of full-time hours.

atmosx 12y ago

Greece is second in the list of most working hours per year and still heavily indebted. The price of political corruption.

Kiro 12y ago

Why isn't it just standard to be paid by the hour? A fixed hours-per-week seems backwards.

bird_in_hand 12y ago
Some workers are pretty interchangeable. If Sarah can assemble parts at the same rate as Sven, then the employer shouldn't care who does it, right? However, for specialized positions or ones that are knowledge-based, this doesn't work. Sarah is a lawyer who's been working on a case for the past 3 months, so it will take her much less time to complete the next step than Sven, who has been working on something else. So in that case, the employer would be pretty unhappy about Sarah wanting to work 30 hours a week, even if Sven is willing to pick up the extra 10. Software developers with the same skills working on the same product are generally closer to the former than the latter, but it depends. The other thing is that there are many fixed costs associated with hiring an employee. They need a desk and office space and computer, they need health insurance/unemployment, you need HR to manage all of this. So it ends up being much more expensive (and complicated) to have two part time employees than one fulltime one. If most benefits were decoupled from employment, a lot (but not all) of these costs go away.

chrisgd 12y ago

The list of countries is so strange to look at with so many countries that have low GDP / capita or recent depressions / austerity forced on them and . . . The US near the top

fetbaffe 12y ago

The problem is not six or eight hours working day, the problem is funding. What I understand the red-green ruling alliance has not put away any funding for this reform, so as usual Göteborg flush their public economy down the toilet and which of course hurts the smaller cities in the same region where they share public programs with Göteborg. Same old story with this city. And is going to be required to hire more employees because of regulations on how many available workers per shift on typical government job. Göteborg has of 2013 a debt of 37,5 billion SEK. On top of that it has 13,5 billions SEK in unfunded penions debts. There is a reason why Göteborg, or Röteborg (Rottenburg) in "folkmun", has one of the highest taxes in Sweden - poor management.

terranstyler 12y ago

It is not the duty of the lawmaker but of the contracting parties (= employer and employee) to define the amount of work hours per day. There are many variables in the process: - Demand for money of the employee (poor father of five vs. rich single) - Demand for work of the employer (company needs a helping hand vs company needs to recruit a new team) - Scale effect of product (does one additional hour or man lead to one additional unit produced?, compare laying bricks vs programming) These variables are unknown to the lawmaker for each specific instance, so any a-priori determination of the amount of work hours per week cannot be optimal.

mbrock 12y ago
There are pretty severe network effects in place, though, as well as obvious imbalance of power (the wage worker is, almost by definition, relatively poor, indebted, etc). Working hours have always been a big part of labor politics. The individual contractual perspective is not the whole story.
- terranstyler 12y ago
  I don't know what network effects you mean. But I agree with the imbalance of power, at least in the common case. However, the more specific and difficult your job is, the more the power leans towards the employee. Still, I believe any kind of power inequality will manifest itself somewhere whether you fix working hours or not.
  - mbrock 12y ago
    Almost every time I've talked to someone about reducing their working hours, the most serious reason not to has been something like "but everyone else is working 8 hours." It's not like the "invisible hand" simply discovered the optimum life arrangement for all workers everywhere.
SEMW 12y ago
> It is not the duty of the lawmaker but of the contracting parties (= employer and employee) to define the amount of work hours per day. Who mentioned lawmakers? I only see two contracting parties here: the municipal government in Gothenburg, and a group of its employees. This idea that there's a short and slippery slope between 'City municipality experiments to find the most efficient working day for its employees' and 'GOVERNMENT BANS ANYONE WORKING MORE THAN SIX HOURS' is, ISTM, dubious.

crazy1van 12y ago

So what is the optimal work day for productivity? Many folks here believe it's a (proven?) fact that less than 40 is actually more productive. However, surely 40 is more productive than 0. So, what is the magic number? Personally, I don't think this is that simple. Heck, humans just aren't that simple. I think some people and some professions are more productive above 40 and others are more productive under 40. That's why I'm in favor of a system that leaves this as a point of negotiation between the employee and employer. Just like there is no one-size fits all salary for, say, a java developer with 5 years experience (how fast is he? how buggy is his code? can he work independently? etc), why would expect to find a one size fits all for work day length?

capisce 12y ago
Productivity is not the only concern, individual preference should also be accounted for. Someone might want to sacrifice 10 hours a week for 20 % less pay for instance (productivity vs hours worked is more than likely not linear). People should be more free to negotiate such arrangements. Basic income could give them the leverage needed to have a stronger negotiating position - right now employers usually have a way stronger hand.
kourt 12y ago
It seems that 40 hours is basically optimal for turn of the 20th century factory work. I've seen several references[0] that the optimum for knowledge work is 35 hours, but I'd LOVE a detailed citation. While you are correct that people vary, many managers seem extremely ignorant of 200 years of research on this topic and start from grossly wrong initial conditions (e.g., "40 hours is the bare minimum and should be considered slacking: a professional works until the job is done and we really expect 50 hours; we prefer passionate people, which starts at around 55 hours"). It would be far better for almost everyone if the typical standard expectation were based on a typical standard human, not on outliers (e.g., people who carry the DEC2 mutation and need only 6 hours sleep). Look at it another way: the 75% of the workforce who is average would stop burning themselves out to the point of negative productivity, and supermen like yourself would be truly recognized for your outstanding contributions, rather than just "meh, meets expectations". [0] e.g. http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-productivity-2756161 http://www.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-productivity-275...

thewpguy 12y ago

I work from home, and I find if I eliminate distraction and go zone-in coding, then six hours are a lot more productive then 8 hours of fooling around. Organization is key (not hours).

marincounty 12y ago

San Francsico local 6 proposed a 10hr/4 day work week; Sat- Mon off. The electricians voted it down. My dad never understood why. As a kid, neither did I understand why anyone wouldn't want hours like this. By the way, getting to the job site is 60% of the hassle, the rest is boring construction. I honestly think all jobs would benefit from just getting rid of Mondays? Two days off is just not enough time; unless you have no life and live through your job. The problem is many of us do not even remotely like our job, or our felllow workers. We hate coming in and seeing the the same people--especially the one's who haven't realized this is no dress rehearsal. We were born and we die--it's a simple equation. A great line I heard out of a movie, 'Give me a hair cut that says I go to a job I hate, only to adorn my spoild wife with consumer crap, and keep my ungrateful kids adorned in expensive jeans for the next thirty years; until I get the courage to blow my head off with a shotgun.' Extreme statement, but rang true with me. Oh yea, to every girlfriend who claimed to love their job-- Great--get your MBA. Put on the pants suit. Climb the ladder. It's my turn to stay home and take care of the spawn. Me and the kids want electronic toys. It's O.K. if your working late, or go to china for Apple. Just send us the checks! We'll be fine. (In all honestly, I think people(especially Americans) want what they can't have, and don't know when they are offered a good deal.)

sethbannon 12y ago

For what it's worth, here's a list of countries ranked by worker productivity (measured by GDP per hour worked): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

gyardley 12y ago

I wonder how much the length of the work week is related to cultural belief in upward mobility, either for yourself or for your children. When I was a kid, my own family - mostly blue-collar, unionized workers - would've only supported a reduction in the work week if that meant they could start getting overtime sooner. They didn't have to, because they were unionized, but they worked as much as they could. They'd happily work holidays like Christmas because it meant they got triple-time. If you gave them a six-hour day at the same rate of pay, they'd celebrate - and then go looking for a part-time job. They did this because they wanted a better life for themselves and their children - not too many six-year-old working class kids had a TRS-80 in their bedroom, but I did. If they didn't believe a better life for themselves or their children was particularly possible, perhaps they would've wanted to work less - but that cultural trait was such a big part of their lives, they would've been entirely different people without it. I have a hard time even picturing it. Because of this, when I read articles like the one linked, they seem so strange - I'm not judging, not at all, but it really highlights how different cultures are wired completely differently.

arjie 12y ago
Father-son income elasticity is higher in the US than in most of Europe. This means that the income of the son more strongly follows the income of the father. The difference you speak of may be due to the fact that making lots of money more strongly determines whether your son will too.

NYCHacker 12y ago

Seriously want to move to Europe now. As a U.S. citizen and web developer, how hard is this to do? Can I just get a remote job here and then move? What are the VISA issues? My biggest concern is that my salary won't be enough to pay my ~$1k/month student loan debt.

mathattack 12y ago

I found the Netherlands numbers strange, but then worked on a Dutch project. They were very industrious, and planned things well in advance, including avoiding work on Fridays or during their sacred vacations. If you can pull off 1400 hours in a year, god bless!