This has already been tried in France with the 35 hours week which has proved to be a total failure.

Thank you, Marsouin, for your erudite contribution. If only all posts on CiF consisted of such reasoned thinking, backed up by evidence and leading to constructive debate.

I suspect the person who uploaded the images at the top of this story may be at risk of having their working week shortened dramatically.

How does that work? If one is on a salary and they have bills to pay, shorter hours, I would think would mean less salary. The problem in our society is low wage page, inflation, the impossibility to survive on one low wage job. How then could anyone survive working a mere 20 hours a week, it would take four adults sharing one home and each working 20 hours a week just to pay for a roof over their head.

People would love less hours and fairer wages, that would make sense.

I presume the idea is that everything else would level out if this was implemented and everyone would in fact find it easier to survive. As often with similar ideas, I think, is the problem of getting from the present state to this one without causing massive upheaval and suffering. Mind you, that has never never seemed to have caused the present government a moment's reflection.

Seriously which planet do they live on? All very well for those working in lucrative jobs but my husband works 60 plus hour a week, every week just to keep the roof over our head. I have long term health problems which makes me unemployable and now our children are grown up there's no financial help available so he has no other option.

We only rent our very modest home from a housing association and there is no way in the foreseeable future that we will be in a position to buy a house. We have no choice but to run a car because of my mobility problems but to save money my husband cycles everywhere.

If there was a blanket twenty hours rule how much more money would that cost the tax payer to subsidise everyone's wages then they are doing now?

For real change in this country several things need to be addressed, the unsustainable cost of housing, sky high utility bills, terrible wages at the lower end of the scale which results in tax payers subsidising miserly business owners businesses through tax credits and paying people to pop out one child after another like breeding machines which is going to put further strain in the future upon our already too low housing stock. Also allowing low earners to keep more of their own wages would also help to get more of the sort of people I know only too well in our area off their bottoms and into work, provided they do not then automatically loose out when it comes to housing and council tax benefits.

One other soul destroying thing that I know from my daughter's experience that needs changing is agency work. Around here there is little else for people without experience but there is no stability and employers are very reluctant to take anyone on their books full time.

It seems many of the commenters are missing some of the article.

"The real question for welfare today is not the GDP growth rate, but how income is divided."

The point the article is trying to make is that life should not be all about work, that there should be more to peoples lives than work, and that governments should not strive for GDP growth, but for quality of living growth, income equality, living fairness, and general happiness. GDP will grow regardless.

There will be fewer jobs in the future than there were in the past - and many of these will be skilled or professional jobs. The fact of the matter is, this is one of the first interesting and exciting ideas for these "top economists" to come out with. And if only the Labour party could have this sort of inspiration on economic policy, they might have a future.

---
So yes, the article is saying we should work less hours - say, 20 hours/week - so that more of us can work, and less of us are unemployed - but also, to give us more leisure time - more time with family and friends.
But also, that peoples incomes should be fairer - 20hours a week at current minimum wage would obviously be untenable. But if we cut the disparity between top earners and low earners?

Quango/thinktank, 'the New Economics Foundation (NEF)'. Anna Coote, of NEF, apparently concurs with the NEFs idea that if everyone only worked 20 or so hours a week, it would be benificial to the economy.

I agree, I will happily work only 20 hours a week, and ask my wife to only work 20 hours a week also.

Within 1 month we will be bankrupt and homeless. As we have no dependents at home, we will have to live rough. Our employers will hopefully be ok with our unkempt state when we do our 20 hours a week.

But if it means the ecomomy will grow, then we should do it. Everyone needs to do their bit. Even the 'NEF'.

Need to go now, I'm seeking heavy duty cardboard boxes for our future.

This could only work if we fundamentally change the whole of the system.

The cost of living needs addressing as it is, so would have to be reduced dramatically for this to work.

On top of all that when people are having to pay such a huge chunk of their income just upon keeping the roof over their heads, also heating and lighting it they have much less disposable income to spend on food, clothing, technology and white goods as well as leisure pursuits, thus keeping the pricing of these goods at historically low levels which at first might seem a good thing but that then has had a knock on effect in what was once our strong industries as British businesses, unable to compete with cheap imports have gone out of business, putting more people out of work.

So could cheaper housing, utilities could end up buy helping more people off benefits and into newly created jobs?

Thank Christ for the New Economics Foundation. I now realise that I can work half as many hours, have more leisure time and earn just as much money! And it can all be done just by passing a few laws. Why has no one thought of legislating our way towards indolent prosperity before?

The New Economics Foundation is to economics what Trofim Lysenko was to agriculture. If these are 'top economics' we are all doomed. Fortuantely, they are not.

'top economists', that is.

Typical communist approach. There is not enough to go around, so everyone should have the same, but less. Except those who do 8 hours a week and earn £100k a year or something of course. And how is this reduced income going to pay for these leisure pursuits, which are rarely if ever, cheap?
Please stop meddling with people's lives and let them get on with earning the money they need.

The cost of living would have to be reduced drastically just to allow ten milliion families to exist without recourse to tax credits, let alone finding the money for leisure activity.

Remember when Edward Heath had to cut the working week to 3 days a week to cut energy use because of the miners strike? Well, it transpired after the fact that productivity went up during that period.

" In 1973, a nationwide coal miners’ strike in Great Britain forced the government to impose an emergency 3-day workweek upon the nation’s economy. The curtailed work schedule lasted for a period of three to four months. When the crisis had ended, economists were startled to learn that industrial production had dropped by only 6%. Improved productivity, combined with a drop in absenteeism, had made up the difference in lost production from the shorter hours. (From Awake, November 8, 1974, originally noted in Vision) "

I would say that's something for all policy makers to reflect on seriously.

This sounds like a great idea to me.

Who wants to keep buying new stuff anyway, what's the point? For example, my fridge is now 15 years old, and it's working fine.

I have some BEAUTIFUL 2nd hand furniture. For example, a couple of years ago, I found a lovely plastic 60's style coffee table, with 4 black legs, in a charity shop. It was EXACTLY the SAME one my MOM had had, when I was about 7! (I used to sort & count my DOLLY MIXTURES on it!)

And what a LOVELY idea , a nice pleasant little job for EVERYONE. And still a bit of time to RELAX & enjoy LIFE!

Presumably half as much work means half as much pay. The problem is that the sort of job that's truly measured in hours rather than output tends to be at the low end of the pay scale (supermarket checkouts, for example). Tackling unemployment by halving the wages of the lowest paid, doesn't really address the injustice of the current disparity of pay scales.

If they really wanted to, the government could easily implement measures to facilitate the introduction of a wonderful system like this.

For example, the RIDICULOUS price of PROPERTY & RENTS at the moment is just an ARTIFICIAL thing, and not necessary at ALL.

Anyone with any sense or a sincere desire to improve the World and the QUALITY of LIFE for the PEOPLE, would support this sort of system,

I suspect that MOST people would be so happy about it, that they would work TWICE as hard as they usually do, in a happy & ENTHUSIASTIC effort to keep the system going & to look after our World and each other!

Have time to spend bringing up children and time to care for aging relatives and friends. Perhaps a bit of study to improve skills and a few hours growing the veg. Time to shop in a town centre rather than zombie one's way round a megastore. Time to integrate with the community and give a helping hand to recreate it. Tinker with repairing or making items rather than buying new. Time to have ideas.

I like the idea and it would save alot of costs. Just need to sort out the income and affordable housing aspect.

Of course they are right. Instead this lot is doing the exact opposite - telling young graduates who are unemployed to waste their time on so-called schemes stacking shelves for 30 hours a week unpaid (or - if u like - on benefit at the rate of £1.87 per hour). This isn't about giving chances to the jobless, it's about sheer exploitation - increasing surplus labour value for the employers by reducing or eliminating wages. In fact using the mass unemployment that this government has created to allow employers to extract work for nothing. No wonder businessmen treat the ConDems as the their friend. They must think every day is Xmas. Do you think they are going to reduce the working week in the interests of the country as a whole? Their agenda is filling the pockets of their greedy capitalist paymasters.

Notzadie,

well said! The 3-day workweek under Ted Heath had little effect on output. We have rushed further down the road of technology & de-manning since 1973. Robots & automation do the lion’s share of ‘work’ these days. Office blocks staffed by hundreds have shrunk down to a desk computer.

‘Work’ concepts stagger on in obsolete Victorian political & economic dogma. Most employed people do nothing productive. Effectively, they run around in circles, often in motor vehicles, trying to beat the bankers’ compound interest racket – a mathematical impossibility.

Science & technology have bypassed & undermined the entire Victorian paradigm we still struggle to live within. They have made most people an unnecessary economic burden. Few sheep in their conservative cul-de-sac pens can puzzle this one out: if the social model does not fit the needs of people, it is the model that is the problem, not people. OGT

To respond to several of the earlier comments - housing is so expensive precisely because it's a limited commodity. We're all competing with each other for the limited amount available and so if I choose to work a 70 hour week (which I don't, but I do) then I'm also forcing you to work longer hours to keep up.

Like an arms race, the only real way to stop this is for people to sit down and mutually agree to stop the madness. If nobody was allowed to work more than a 20 hour weeks then house prices would have to drop substantially. A lot of people would find this very painful.

The real problem I see with this, is that some jobs such as medicine are built around experience. 70 hours a week doesn't build experience as fast as 50 hours a week, because you're too shattered to reflect and read up on what you're exposed to. But 20 hours a week is probably below a viable threshold to.

The paradigm of work mentioned in the article is achievable if we as a society commit to it. It may take a revolution of some kind, but it will be worth it.

A very easy way of achieving something similar would be of course to bring DOWN the retirement age!

It's not rocket science ..... as the age of retirement goes up ..... so does the unemployment amongst the young!

Marsouin

8 January 2012 12:16AM

This has already been tried in France with the 35 hours week which has proved to be a total failure

Failure eh?

Whether you take the opinion of the World Bank, the CIA or the IMF, the economy of France is considerably larger than that of the UK with approximately the same population.

Shame that Dave's driving our's in the opposite direction.

Great Britain doesn't belong the Eurozone: why does the Eurozone take care of how many unemployed people are overthere? You may reach 4 or 5 we don't care. You may build the first army of the industrial reserve as it were forecast in XIX°century. Cameron is the shame of Europe but why should he been bothering of his fame inside an Europe going to break!

I like the idea of a 20 hour working week, but it would leave me struggling to pay the bills. And I don't see how that would equate to more jobs across the board in the short term.

Having experienced employment and unemployment I reached the conclusion that the working week should be less in order to share the work load around more people.

On one hand we've got millions of people going to work each day, typically around the same time (putting stresses on infrastructure, i.e. the rush hour), thus people have additional stresses even just getting to work. Once at work, the pace can be relentless, with managers watching clocks and the expectation that every single minute of the day be worked to the maximum as well as the notion that those who leave at 5 are the ones who are not committed! Then follows the rush hour journey back home. Which might leave a couple of hours for family - once the dinner has been made, pots washed up etc.

How did we end up with a society like this? With our superior 21st Century intelligence and supporting technologies - life in general should be getting easier. However, with every minute freed - it is expected that this then be filled with more work.

It is also simple mathematics (and dare I say common sense?) that if say three people who worked 9-5 ( 8 Hours ) worked 6 hours instead, the accumulation of those lost '3x2' hours could be taken up by someone else.

This simple redistribution of time would have huge consequences:

I) Less Stress : Less hours worked equates directly to less stress. People who are less stressed are able to work more effectively and are likely to enjoy their job more. The weird outcome of this is that instead of people bouncing emails, or shuffling papers to fill time in order to counter their own stress in the workplace - they actually become more efficient.

II) Less Illness : A reduction of work load stress would help keep the work force healthy. Meaning less visits to the doctor, less 'sickies' taken and a general better well being of everyone.

III) Lower Taxes : Quite a few people who are against the idea of reducing working hours often site the need to be earning enough money as a reason to be working so many hours. Which, yes is understandable with rising living costs / fuel bills etc. However, reduced working hours would actually mean living costs would come down. For example, reduced demand for NHS services (See II) would in turn mean less tax revenue would be required to fund them. By lowering taxes *and* reducing the working week - this money would likely be spent

IV) Job Security : The simple act of reducing the 8 hour working day to six hours instantly creates more jobs. When there are more jobs to go around, the fear of losing ones job and having to go the Job Centre to fill out the daily 'Job Search Diary' would disappear. In turn, when people feel safe in their jobs they are more likely to spend that money. Thus, more money would circulating.

Circulation of money in the economy is *the* one factor guaranteed to ensure a growing economy - see the recent banking crisis where banks wouldn't lend to each other (i.e. reducing circulation of money.) With more people a part of that pot

This concept is already creeping into the workplace. Although, unfairly. There are employees who have the benefit of having a spouse who earns enough that they can, for example, work a three day week. The results are plain to see. They come in to work, on a Tuesday (!) fresh faced, relaxed full of energy after a long weekend. Work through to Thursday where they then have Friday off and have four days to 'recover' from the three days. All very well, but this has an awful impact on those unable to reduce to three days, hence work the full five days @ 8 hours and feel wrecked by Friday. Come Saturday, by the time the household chores and weekly shop is done, the weekend might actually start at sometime Saturday afternoon.

As a society we can do better!

We owe it to our children to keep a work ethic but mould it into a Work Ethic for the 21st Century.

Over and out! :)

Far from cutting hours, the Future Foundation reckons folks will have to work in their seventies to supplement their pension.

Oh, fucking joy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/10030407

There is much to recommend in your post, most particularly that in high-stress jobs (which can be so at any level) working shorter hours per day usually means a higher output of better quality.

I doubt many would argue with that.

Which tells us something about the folks who want our schoolchildren to work ever longer! There's plenty of Tory politicians pushing this idea, but the latest plonker to espouse it was NuLabour's Stephen Twig, FFS!

I suspect the authors of this report have not the faintest concept as to what work actually is!

Most of the people in local government have already adopted the 20 hour working week system.

Of course they're supposed to work for 40 hours, but few ever do.

The lower down the working hierarchy you are, the longer hours and the more years you will be working. Bosses please themselves, GPs and hospital consultants are renowned for their short working day and week.

Feedback

8 January 2012 08:40AM

Most of the people in local government have already adopted the 20 hour working week system.

Of course they're supposed to work for 40 hours, but few ever do.

Keep watching CIF. You'll find it crammed full of "hard-working private sector types" whose "hard work" is clearly spending a major part of their "working day" on here.

silverthread

8 January 2012 08:45AM

The lower down the working hierarchy you are, the longer hours and the more years you will be working. Bosses please themselves, GPs and hospital consultants are renowned for their short working day and week.

I think you'll find that the top folk have working lunches. Those too low down the scale have lunch while working.

The working class MUST demand a shorter working day - for example, even if we could reduce the working day by only an hour, (7-hour day instead of an 8-hour day), we would in effect have created a new job for every 7 workers (instead of employing 7 workers for 8 hours/day, we could employ 8 workers for 7 hours/day).

The problem is of course that the capitalists are the ones in charge, not the workers. And the capitalists will never accept this, as it reduces their profits. And even if some of them do, the rest of them will not, and they latter will dominate over the former, since they will have a big competitive advantage (they exploit the workers more, so they can sell their products at cheaper prices, or produce more products, etc.).

Even Keynes predicted that by 2030, we'd be working a 15-hour week, mainly thanks to greater productivity. (source: Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/22/maynard-keynes-wealth-economics) .

Keynes's mistake was that he underestimated the ability of the capitalists to keep all the newly created wealth for themselves, by increasing the rate of exploitation of the workers.

Yes, capitalism has created the technology to work for only 15 hours/week. But it has also created a class of oligarchs who prefer to live at the expense of the workers, and make some of them work for 15 hours/day, and leave some others unemployed and with no income at all. And it is this realization that has created the incentive for the workers to overthrow the capitalists, or face a life in poverty, even a death of starvation.

http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/greater-productivity-and-eight-hour-day.html

This could mean men and women sharing jobs, like MPs or CEOs. How about reforesting all of upland Britain and rehousing people in the new improved countryside? With the new fibre optic telephone cables people could quite happily work from home. Methane gas from sewage/recycling facilities? All energy renewable. No take zones to preserve fish stocks and bigger net sizes. An end to the armed forces, have them be on standby for disasters or emergencies. The list is endless so long as we get away from the Trumpton approach to British society. Yes, there is such a thing as British society, however much it has been mangled over the years.

"...carbon dioxide is belching into the atmosphere from our power-hungry offices and homes."

That is a strange phenomenon indeed.

Can the author explain how that is happening?

Have people and businesses stopped using electricity, whose source in some cases, comes from alternative sources?

But also, that peoples incomes should be fairer - 20hours a week at current minimum wage would obviously be untenable. But if we cut the disparity between top earners and low earners?

Given the habit that the government has of ensuring bank bosses get thier obscene salries no mattter wht happens elsewhere there is absolutley no chance of this idea working - yes it would be nice to have parity but as we live in a capitalism-based society with a 'winner takes it all' mentality it ain't gonna happen.
'Growth' only works when others get shafted - there is no alternative if 'success' equals wealth.

Typical communist approach. There is not enough to go around, so everyone should have the same, but less. Except those who do 8 hours a week and earn £100k a year or something of course. And how is this reduced income going to pay for these leisure pursuits, which are rarely if ever, cheap?
Please stop meddling with people's lives and let them get on with earning the money they need.

'communist approach' - ah, you must be one who welcomes the billions in tax evasion, the guaranteed obscene bonuses, maintenance of high salaries at the expense of jobs and all the rest of our current 'fair' economy.

There is plenty to go round - if your beloved Tories actualy treated thier mates the same as everyone else then we wouldn't even have a national debt, but no, the rest of us have to suffer to maintain the inequality.

A very easy way of achieving something similar would be of course to bring DOWN the retirement age!

And the forcibly retired who have a wealth of experience and expertise, what happens to them?
Who supports them once they stop working?
What to the masses of not-s-old people do to keep busy?

Yup, really easy once you think about it.

Keep watching CIF. You'll find it crammed full of "hard-working private sector types" whose "hard work" is clearly spending a major part of their "working day" on here.

Proof?

To Marsouin - 'Tried in France and seen as a total failure' or similar.

If deemed a failure it is simply because of the greed of those in work and amassing as much overtime as humanly possible and the inability of politicians to think our of the box. More technology= fewer workers than in say mass manufacturing + increasing poulation. It's plain to see.

"Most of the people in local government have already adopted the 20 hour working week system.

Of course they're supposed to work for 40 hours, but few ever do."

A cheap jibe.

Having worked in LG myself and having worked many hours of unpaid overtime,
I find these smears distasteful in the extreme.

Most LG officers work at least the hours contracted - and not only work hard,
but smart too. To provide the most for the public on shrinking budgets.

Also on a pay lower than private sector equivalents (job v job - not the insane
aggregation of all LG pays v private sector pays as favoured by the totally (deliberately?)
innumerate reporters of the Daily Fail).

I suspect we'd have a better idea from "Gerry Rafferty".

Ideas are cheap, but many of them are produced by people who might not have to fund them, or turn a blind eye to the cost anyway.

I'm still waiting to find that "very easy way" as a solution to complex problems.

Interesting link on working hours.

See how the Germans have a 35 hour week in the metal working industry
and very long holidays!

(and judging from his car and the holidays he and his wife take -
my neighbour in German metal working is not too badly paid.
The shift work is not to be envied though).

Long working hours, where people are on overtime, certainly makes no economic sense even for capitalists. Apart from that, as is more common, where people feel pressurised to work additional hours, but not at any enhanced rate, and sometimes for no pay at all, as they are on a fixed monthly salary, makes no sense either, as tired, exhausted workers do not do efficient work, are not at their best performance creatively, and will look for ways of reducing their work burden illegitimately.

The most cretinous type of business executive, looks at workers as a cost, rather than a resource, and looks at ways of reducing the cost to a minimum, rather than at ways of getting the most out of the resource.

Beyond that, is the problem of the Thatcherite "thinking", that there is no such thing as society. The solution being proposed is looking at what benefits everyone, where Thatcherite "dog-eats-dog", "thinking", only looks at ways the top-dogs can benefit at the expense of everyone else.

This item appears to have been published 12 weeks early. April Fools Day is on a Sunday this year and this is where it belongs

To Marsouin - 'Tried in France and seen as a total failure' or similar.

If deemed a failure it is simply because of the greed of those in work and amassing as much overtime as humanly possible and the inability of politicians to think our of the box. More technology= fewer workers than in say mass manufacturing + increasing poulation. It's plain to see.

And why would it be any different in this country? Of course you could always employ people to act like the Stasi and monitor anyone attempting to do overtime or other things against the state!

"...welcomes the billions in tax evasion..."

Tax evasion is illegal. How would you know whether billions in tax evasion was going on?

It would be kept secret, wouldn't it, or else charges would be brought against the perpetrators?

If you really mean "tax minimisation" or "tax avoidance", then that is quite legal. In fact, anyone who doesn't pay the minimum required under the law would be a strange person indeed.

Imagine a situation where a person arranges his affairs so that he need legally pay only a certain amount, but then is stricken with "philanthropy" and decides to "donate" a whole lot more in tax to HMRC.

A famous jurist once said that there is no obligation to pay any more tax than is necessary under the law - one can arrange one's financial affairs to achieve that, as far as the law allows.

If you ever win a Euromillions, or similar, fortune, "please and be sure" to place it in an account where you will pay the maximum tax under the PAYE system. I expect nothing less!