It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two experts

Re:It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two e... by jammygit on Saturday June 08, 2019 @07:29PM (#20135900)

A 1/5 hit in revenue might have a larger impact on profits. It would completely wipe out many businesses with small margins. Are we saying that those businesses should not exist?

Edit: increased productivity needs to be a huge part of the argument here

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two e... by a3n on Saturday June 08, 2019 @08:45PM (#20136212)

Think of the number of businesses that could exist if we had a sixth workday. Are we saying those businesses properly have never existed?

What's magic or received about five days?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two e... by kennywinker on Saturday June 08, 2019 @08:17PM (#20136106)

First off, if you want that profit back, hire more people. Unlikely that labour is 100% of your costs. If it’s 10% of your costs you’d have to hire 1/5 more people, and costs would go up 1/5*0.1 = 2%

If your business dies at a 2% loss of profits, i’m ok with that.

But frankly i doubt you’d lose 1/5 of your worker productivity by cutting hours by 1/5 (assuming pay rates stay the same) - so that’s a worst-case scenario where productivity is directly tied to time-spent-working.

[ Parent | on HN ]