Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is invaluable"

Re:Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is inval... by lotsofpulp on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:08AM (#40632698)

I never claimed free time was not a major component of quality of life. The insinuation was that maintaining or increasing some components of quality of life, such as labor and resource intensive healthcare, could come at a cost of other components of quality of life, such as free time (and those gains/costs are not necessarily experienced by the same person).

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Re:Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is inval... by Rinzler89 on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:30AM (#40632859)

Exactly. Imagine how will your quality of life be if all doctors, teachers, nurses, delivery workers, plumbers, service workers, also worked only 4 days/week. There would be an even worse labor shortage across the entire economy of biblical proportions.

It's easy to see how it benefits you when only you're working 4 days/week but the rest of society on which your first world lifestyle depends, keeps working 5 days/week, being at your disposal for the same amount of time, while your enjoying more time off than the rest.

Need a doctor? Sorry, you'll have to wait more time now because now all are working 4 days/week. Need to go grocery shopping? Sorry, everything is closed today. Need a plumber? Sorry, most are off today as well.

There's no free lunch here. Moving the entire society to 4 days/week would require massive shifts economically and socially.

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Re:Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is inval... by account42 on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:16AM (#40633309)

So why now advocate for 6 or 7 day work week then? Because time off is worth a lot. And going from a 5 day work week to a 4 day work week is a 20% reduction of work days but a whopping 50% increase in weekend days.

Meanwhile the number of doctors and plumbers etc. is not a fixed constant but driven by demand. There are plenty of qualified people currently doing useless work or unemployed who could fill those roles with the right incentives.

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Re:Germany trials the four-day workweek: "Free time is inval... by Rinzler89 on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:59AM (#40633770)

>Because time off is worth a lot.

It is, but someone still has to work to keep society going in those "time off days". Doctors can't treat the same amount of patients in 4 days as in 5. Teachers can't squeeze the curriculum in 4 days. Customer support can't squeeze everyone in 4 days. Etc.

So how will you increase the number of doctors and other staff to work in the days the existing staff are off?

You can't just magic more workers out of thin air, especially now when we're already in a labor shortage in many fields like healthcare with everyone already working 5 days/week and with fertility declining in the west.

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