I have hear Bob Bright talk about his theory about the 4 day work week. Basically the idea spurs from the fact that as we have become more and more technologically based the need for jobs becomes less and less. An example, a cashier... we now have computers who are able to cash us out. In fact I was at the airport and there was this restaurant Boars Sandwich or something like that, where they actually have computer monitors where you type in exactly what sandwich you want with all the tops / extra / sides. You do it all. According to Bob practically every job really can be eliminated if you wanted to invest enough time & money into the engineering. Even you could replace the oldest profession... prostitution. I remember Howard Stern commenting about how he thought this one blow up doll was just as good as an ole' hooker. And if you take a look at the corporate workplace you'll find that everyone is faking it on the job. No one really works a full 8 hours. I knew this guy who I used to work with who got up to level 150 or something outrageous playing mindsweeper, or some game like that, why... because there just wasn't enough work to do, so he occupied his time playing mindsweeper So this unemployment # keeps on going up, and up...but we're really fighting an uphill battle, as technology increase so do the # of jobs. What bob has proposed is to make it a mandatory 4 day work week. Basically he's saying... We are so good w/ advancing technology that we really don't need people working 40 hrs a week. There just is not enough work. We have created machines to do the work for us. So cut the work week to 32 hours. And keep the pay the same. ` Opinions?
1) Keeping "pay the same" will not be easy. 2) By working less than ~37 hours per week, everybody becomes part-time. Benefits can be eliminated for everybody. Gosh! It's almost like we're gonna go back to the late 1800's when employees were treated like "garbage". Talk about "progress". :eek:
If could be true, every workers have a big party for this news and don't need to work part-time. For me, I will have longger holliday
this idea is already getting legs in germany...where instead of firiing people.... they will just cut everyone's hours to like 4 days so instead of paying 10 people 50 k a year... you fire 2, now you have 8 people making 50k ..or 400k now u have 10 people making 40k a year..but working 1 less day another bs way to keep unemployment rates higher also d
I should have stated about this.... The "topic" that is think i spurs some question is "Cut the work week to 4 day and keep "EVERYONE's" pay the same." So what will happen is that the unemployment rate will drop, but employers will have to pay more. Is that a good thing?
Obviously Bob is under qualified for his job. In the old days, this thread would have been garbaged. Welcome to the new ET.
People used to work 10-16 hours per day before they implimented the 40 hour work week in the 1800s. 32 hour work week could work, but with the current economy we would see a drop in the standard of living(we will probably see it anyway though) and I believe that it would take many years for things to equal out as far as the standard of living goes. Also for the person that said employers would have to raise wages, well, you cant just raise people wages 20% for working less hours anymore than you can cut peoples wages 20% for working more hours. That will not fly.