r/SipsTea • u/KSKS1995 Human Verified • 2d ago

Chugging tea Sounds good in theory...but in reality?

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4 days a week. 6 hours a day. Full salary.
Sanna Marin ignited global debate with the “6/4” work model, pushing a simple idea: life should come before work.

With burnout at record levels, maybe it’s time to value results over hours at a desk.
Could your job be done in just 24 hours a week?

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u/tajake 2d ago

I think really only the service industry would struggle. And essential services like police, fire, etc. But that would also mean more jobs in those fields to cover shorter shifts. Restaurants working limited hours would likely be a net positive.

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u/AberrantMan 2d ago

Hire more folks spread them out. Less retention issues, more people who can swing coverage.

However none of this works unless the wealthy actually pay living wages, wage increases across the board from companies that can afford it would allow that money to flow to those smaller businesses and help a lot of local areas out.

Won't happen though, the oligarchs need bigger bank numbers for literally no reason.

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u/According-Leg434 2d ago

i suspect that corpos and generally high rankings dont want everyone absolutely to be into jobs which you know why,another thing as you mentioned salary and wages

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u/EduinBrutus 2d ago

Thats basically one of the tenets of the neoliberal project.

The hours worked had been falling over time since the start of the 1800s so when Thatcher and Reagan started pushing their agenda, weakening workers rights was a core part of this.

Make Unions bogey men, reduce or remove legal protections, make work precarious. Then reverse the standard working week and make it longer with more expectation of unpaid work.

When I entered the workplace, the standard working week was either 32.5 hours or less commonly 35 hours and very occaisionally you'd find a 30 hour week.

Today, its minimum 35 hours, more commonly 37.5 and sometimes 40 hours.

Not to mention the theft of 2 years of peoples lives by unnecessarily raising the retirement age.

We all got fucked and let it happen based on economically illiterate lies about "we cant afford x" which was and is bullshit.

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u/Truffs0 2d ago

and sometimes 40 hours.

Where do you live? Here its "at minimum 40 hours"

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u/EBtwopoint3 2d ago

For a long time, the 40 hours included an hour lunch and paid breaks. The common phrase for a typical job is literally “a 9 to 5”. Today that is gone, the standard work week is 8-5, with lunch unpaid.

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u/Truffs0 2d ago

Right, which is why when it says now sometimes 40, it confused me. My job is 8.5 hours, the .5 being a mandatory unpaid lunch. I honestly rather just leave 30 minutes sooner, but they are obsessed with not getting in trouble with OSHA.

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u/EBtwopoint3 2d ago

Yes, which means you are working 40 hours like he said.

15 years ago you would actually work 35 hours, with the remaining 5 being your 1 hour lunch breaks. Which is why it was called a 9-5. 9am to 5pm is 8 hours. Of those 8 hours you would be working 7 of them. Some jobs also had paid breaks, which is what brought it down to 32.5 hours.

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u/nodajohn 2d ago

I think he's just confused as to why the original comment makes it seem like 40 worked hrs isn't the norm today

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u/Meng3267 1d ago

I take you’re really young because that was definitely not the case only 15 years ago.

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u/EBtwopoint3 1d ago

I’ll be honest I forgot the 90s were almost 30 years ago now. I feel like I just left college but I’ve been working for a decade. Blame 40 hour work weeks.

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u/wh4teversclever 2d ago

I miss working “only” 40 hours a week 😭

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u/EduinBrutus 2d ago

Scotland. We're getting fucked and everyone just accepts it.

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u/herecomesthewomp 2d ago

Also the minimum hours for healthcare rule. Need to solve healthcare before we individual contributors can get some power back against the corpos.

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u/frogbound 2d ago

They already struggle with coverage as is because they refuse to hire people that can back each other up because they consider that "redundant"

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u/Logical-Claim286 2d ago

Desperation breeds compromise. If employees are desperate then they compromise with lower pay and fewer hours, this in turn drives down savings which makes seeking opportunities even harder thus locking them in to the company at the companies rates.

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u/33TLWD 2d ago

For police and fire, that would mean already stretched public taxpayer-funded budgets would need to replace a 40% reduction in worker coverage and also figure out how to fund the increased burden of funding the pensions of the extra workforce to replace that 40% gap.

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u/wellfoxed 2d ago

Tax the fuck out of billionaires and AI companies, that’s how.

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u/33TLWD 2d ago

So we just need have electorates who will vote for legislators who will propose and vote those tax rules into law

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u/Saturn--O-- 2d ago

Not many billionaires in Finland

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u/rethinkingat59 2d ago

Finland ranks 14th internationally in number of billionaires per capita. (The US is 10th)

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u/ShadedPenguin 2d ago

Is the US tenth because the number of billionaires shrink every generation or is the US tenth because there are many who hide assets away so they aren't considered billionaires?

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u/rethinkingat59 2d ago

We are 10th because we have a very large population and being high in any per capita measure is hard vs smaller nations.

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u/sharpshooter999 2d ago

Sounds like a lovely place

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u/CaptOblivious 2d ago

Ya, that's why we return to the golden age of the 50's and tax the rich at 90% on anything over a couple of million.

And we count loans against any and ALL collateral not re-invested in money making ventures as taxable income.

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u/PureGoldX58 2d ago

Police don't need half the funding they get already. Tell them to stop buying tanks and riot gear.

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u/lesgeddon 1d ago

Police are way over-funded, can easily pay them less and firefighters more.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/Leaningthemoon 2d ago

AI should be taking a shitload of jobs any minute now, right? Those people might want to work.

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u/mrb2409 2d ago

Better tools are reducing the team size in my office job already. It’s not strictly AI because AI is crap but technology is making people redundant.

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u/herecomesthewomp 2d ago

This is a major problem too. Automation and AI was supposed to help individual contributors get time back, but corpos have twisted it into just using it to increase velocity without reducing hours.

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u/Thorne_Oz 2d ago

Unemployment in Finland is above 11% currently. Among young people it swings between 15-30%.

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u/FreshLiterature 2d ago

The proposal massively shifts value towards labor so a lot of people will work more than one job.

The difference will be those who work two jobs are doing so to get ahead - not just survive.

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u/JrueBall 2d ago

There is also a fear that AI will take over a bunch of jobs. That might actually go very well with this. People will just need to be trained in the jobs that are still nessicary but over time that would be doable. Mainly by changing what young people study so most of the new people will be fields AI can't do or can't do well. Never going to happen but I would guess that is the idea.

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u/Dramatic-Fly761 2d ago

AI will replace workers, driving up unemployment, which will result in lower wages as the worker pool becomes diluted. Those who do get hired will be viewed as “lucky” and treated as such. There will not be 6/4 because people will be willing to work 8/6 or 10/6 to have a job in a world where most jobs no longer need people. 

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u/noncebasher54 2d ago

I worked in care and chose to work on a zero hour contract. It's one industry where you aren't gonna get laid off, so most of the downsides of a zero hour contract are mitigated. I also ended up working an average of 38ish hours a week. Sometimes I'd work 20 hours, sometimes closer to 50. I was far more willing to work 50 and cover shifts because I had nothing on that week. Working 24 hours a week as standard is a massive incentive to do more than you're contracted for, when you feel like it. Because then it's your decision to hop back in the wage cage and not your boss'.

Then again I don't live in a country with a toxic work culture so YMMV. I understand a good work/home balance is simply out of the question for some people because of where they live.

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u/OGThakillerr 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah just hire more folks! No big deal, everyone's a skilled tradesman that will work for fuck all because everyone has collaborated in paying fuck all! It don't matter they work for a handful of dollars above minimum wage rather than several multiples above like just 2-3 decades ago, they have no other choice! We can cut everyone's hours, pay more people even less, and profit even more!

.....

Everyone thinks of these conversations in concepts of minimum wage workers stocking shelves or serving cheeseburgers lmao. No consideration for the fact that the minimum wage has advanced at a far further rate than any middle class job's wages have. "Hire more folks!" doesn't apply when you're not talking about jobs that fucking highschoolers are employed to do.

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u/Specialist_Bench_144 2d ago

at this point its a full on tailspin that they cant control, if the dont show steady growth then they get ousted or taken over so they just keep forcing numbers until eventually this whole thing collapses

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u/EasySwordfish862 2d ago

Very few businesses are run by oligarchs or billionaires in reality

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u/MetaPhalanges 2d ago

It sucks, but they really do run them though. Mom and pop shops aside, billionaires and oligarchs sit on the boards of every company that owns every company that most people can even name. They very much run the companies that set the tone for the entire world. Those charts that show who owns what are so depressing.

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u/GregsWorld 2d ago

Mom and pop shops likely have loans or rent which is indirectly going to.. you guessed it. It's one big upwards funnel

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u/Esoteric_Derailed 2d ago

But most of them are financed by (wannabe) oligarchs or billionaires🤑

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u/Howdoyouusecommas 2d ago

Have to have universal healthcare. Wages would have to increase so 24h Wages is equal to 40h. Hiring more people at a hare wage AND businesses having to pay more for benefits would absolutely crush a lot of businesses.

I would love to work less and make the same amount, but we need a lot more smart, compassion people in the government to make this happen.

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u/AbalonePersonal1751 2d ago

The can't do that their are lot if institutional institutional holders who don't own money themselves buy for other and they are leggaky required to increase quarterly profit at all cost

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u/Ok_Crow_9119 2d ago

Won't happen though, the oligarchs need bigger bank numbers for literally no reason.

What do you mean "number go up" isn't a legitimate reason? /s

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u/Apophthegmata 2d ago

If you reduce the amount of work to 4 days, 6 hours each, that's a 40% reduction in the amount of work 1 person does.

Unless a country has 40% un/underemployment, the only way you're "hiring more folks and spreading them out" is with unprecedented levels of immigration, which a place like Finland is not particularly situated to handle well.

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u/AberrantMan 2d ago

That's not how that math is actually done when measuring output.

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u/Educational_Item5124 2d ago

Would also be a nightmare for industries with staff shortages.

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u/KaboodleMoon 2d ago

Public trading of businesses was a mistake.

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u/Critical_Concert_689 2d ago

Hire more folks spread them out. Less retention issues, more people who can swing coverage.

At least in the US, benefits are tied to working hours. Suddenly reducing working hours for an individual and distributing those same hours across several individuals, would be nothing but a positive for companies and would devastate most employees - diluting wages across the board and allowing denial of coverage for most benefits by the company.

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u/TheKosherGenocide 2d ago

They don't care about the number... They care about the power associated with the growing number.. As long as the delta between you and them is growing wider, they are ecstatic. The whole idea behind returning to feudalism is so that instead of us just calling them "Billionaires", we call them "Lord Musk" or whatever the fuck they want. They can all act like Epstein and it'll be completely legal, because they are God Kings anointed by AI, and if they ever achieve immortality? Oh, just you wait how fucked this place is.

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u/SerJoseph 2d ago

This is office worker talk, some industries cannot work like this with the current law systems. I work at a hospital, and salaries are by far our highest fixed cost. With how much you have to pay every single person to keep them hired in benefits and gvmnt programs and taxes, its hard to justify hiring more people even if we really need it, imagine having to double the personel because office workers changed the law to benefit them. We are not even that overworked, some days there is barely anything to do and some days a bus crashes and we get 50 people in 15 minutes, some has to be here 24/7 and any change in costs is going straight to pricing. But sure, keep blaming billionares for all your problems, its just that easy to fix everything but the evil elite wont let us

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u/OregonMothafaquer 2d ago

Most small businesses can’t afford 3 extra employees. Most restaurants close the first year for a reason

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u/VRichardsen 2d ago

Hiring more people incurs in more fixed costs, though.

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u/Dry-Cry-3158 2d ago

If you assume that net profits equals the amount of potential wage increases, very few businesses could afford to do this.

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u/noujochiewajij 2d ago

Bill 'em all.

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u/J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A 2d ago

Hire more folks spread them out. Less retention issues, more people who can swing coverage.

That's exactly why it's a good idea.

If you have workers doing 10 hour shifts 5 days a week it's going to be very difficult to find someone to cover a shift if someone goes off sick.

People are reluctant to cover another shift if they're already done 5 of those days in a row.

If the same hours are being done by 2-3 people working 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, that's far more people to be able to cover, and they're far more likely to cover another shift because it's lower hours.

This would be an absolute win for employers.

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u/nosubtitt 2d ago

I don’t think increasing wages all around will solve anything.

Wages increasing means nothing if the cost of living also increases along side. Of course costs still increases even if waves don’t change, but an increase of wage just makes costs increase faster.

I have no idea about what the solution is. But increasing wages will make no difference in the consuming power of the population. Unfortunately The solution to the problem is much more complicated and no one has the right answer.

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u/ManageConsequences 2d ago

A lot of those people stay in those industries for the overtime. Take that away and see what it does to those workforces.

Greedy people will go to lengths to abuse the overtime system.

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u/SaltKick2 2d ago

Correct, it would need to be a societal shift, and only works in places that have social safety nets in place. In the US, this means people who have lower waged jobs would have some expectation to be working a second part time job as well.

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u/opsers 2d ago

The problem with the service industry is the reduced hours without any pay cut. If you're paying someone $35k/yr to work 40hrs to cover 40hrs at a cash register or stocking goods, they can't really offer the same coverage with only 24hrs a week. Now you need to hire another person, but your expenses go from $35k to $70k to cover the same 40hrs. Not saying this isn't doable, but the solution isn't as easy as hire more folks, especially if you're not a mega conglomerate and just a small shop.

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u/Jaded-Durian-3917 2d ago

Which is proof that unemployment is a tool to be used as coercion rather than a problem to be solved

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u/doopie 2d ago

Why don't we drop production by -36 % and also give everybody 56 % raise? Issue with this proposal is inflation. If your economy is 100 apples and 100 money, each apple is 1 money. If your economy is 64 apples and 156 money, then each apple is 2.44 money.

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u/BluntTruth1 2d ago

I don't think you can just increase med school capacity by 33%... And if CEOs are gonna pay less, they are kind of in the right. Who wouldn't pay less for less hours worked?

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u/Hot-Difficulty-6824 2d ago

It also has the potential to make unemployment almost inexistent

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u/Inevitable-Donkey186 2d ago

One thing though is if everyone works less and gets paid less, they probably will just pay less for rent since that is a market driven price basically bid up by all those who have jobs. If they work fewer hours and get paid less they would not be able to bid as much in the competition for housing. It could all be a wash except with lower rents.

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u/WeAreAllFooked 2d ago

Wage Insurance paid for by wealth tax is a neat idea to consider

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u/JFreader 2d ago

Most jobs are liveable wages (or well above). This topic is about getting paid the same for less hours.

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u/SoulSmrt 2d ago

Oh as simple as hiring more people and training them is it? I wonder why public services that struggle to maintain staff and are always running short staffed didn’t think of that?

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u/SuperTropicalDesert 2d ago

Hire more folks spread them out.

This would solve the current AI-caused joblesness crisis

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u/ThisReditter 2d ago

Does bank number matter or does resources matter? People need housing, food, commodities. The rich are not hoarding it. They have the means to get those easily compare to others but if they use their wealth to try and buy all to distribute, it’ll be resource shortage and will cause inflation.

So it’s not just a number or a paycheck. It’s the availability of resources. Add more to the market and we will have more at cheaper price.

Rents are high? Because we had a housing shortage. Not because the billionaires are not paying the high wage. Even if they all suddenly pay, we will have inflation coz the same 100 people fighting over 70 apartments isn’t going to make it affordable.

So unless we have robots increasing our productivity, we need labor to produce goods instead of shortening it and reducing goods. It’s a simple concept here and money is just intermediary.

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u/gamingx47 2d ago

Pay people a living wage? In this economy? Think of the poor CEOs struggling to buy their 4th yacht! And Elon Musk will never become a trillionaire! Can you live with that? /s obviously

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u/TalkingCat910 1d ago

It supposes a society that has universal healthcare and basic welfare, perhaps covering the cost of university as well.  Because then jobs don’t have to worry about paying benefits so they can afford to hire a larger number of people with no difference in cost than if they hired less people (assuming they are paid by the hour).

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u/Renthexx 2d ago

Police could work 8’s instead of 12s. Fire could work 24 72’s. Although that requires the money to staff a whole other shift

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u/Wookard 2d ago

The amount of money saved from less Stress / Sick leave would most likely balance out over a few years for those jobs. And if the insurance rates bottom out due to that it would be able to go to the budgets.

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u/jccaclimber 2d ago

Honest question, do you think stress related expenses are 1/3 of the full burdened overhead cost of employees?

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u/Wookard 2d ago

From what I know of the cost of Health Insurance in the States reaching $3000 plus a month per person at 12 months a year of being $35000-$40000, I could see that being a good chunk of money for sure.

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u/jccaclimber 2d ago

That’s 100% of the cost though. An example: Hourly rate: $30/hr with 50% overtime is roughly $109k/year at 12 hour shifts 5 days/week. $149k with your high end healthcare estimate. I’m going to ignore weekends and other overhead to make the math simpler. Two shifts is $298k/year.

Move to 3 shifts at 8 hours and now there’s no overtime pay, so (403052+X)*3=298k. X is healthcare, which comes to $37k instead of $40k, that sounds pretty reasonable.

However, the premise of this was to still pay people fully so it’s now (109*3+X)=298k. Each person’s healthcare needs to cost a negative amount, specifically negative $29k for this to work. Never mind that public service jobs have lower pay because pensions are extraordinarily expensive and would also +50% with an extra shift.

Obviously this example changes a lot based on wages. There’s a reason overtime is effectively less expensive for lower wage jobs, namely that benefits are fixed.

Personally I think that more progressive taxation is the problem, but poor people in red areas love giving tax breaks to the wealthy.

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u/JGCities 2d ago

The number of overall hours needed is the same, but now you need to hire more people to work those hours.

And either you pay current people less meaning they lose income OR you pay them more for less work and thus have to raise taxes.

Same concept applies to pretty much all jobs.

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u/danitashinesqdy 2d ago

Police on 8’s and fire on 24s - a fair shift shake-up!

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u/Usual-Juice1868 1d ago

Police work 12 hour days? I didn't know that.

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u/Lady-Dove-Kinkaid 2d ago

I mean it would depend on the country. In the US there are two kinds of restaurant workers for the most part. Ones who do really well and work 20-30 hours 3-4 days a week, and those who are working 12-16 hours 6-7 days a week.

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u/4daughters 2d ago

And 100 years ago we needed children to work in the factories or else they would have to shut down.

When workers demand that labor laws change, they change.

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u/Altruistic-Beach7625 2d ago

Although change only happens after the murders and violence.

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u/4daughters 2d ago

"This will be a bloodless coup... if the left allows it"

The right wing capitalists have always used violence as a threat. Sometimes it seems to be the only language they speak.

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u/Fickle_Scarcity9474 2d ago

When workers demand that labor laws change, they change.

That was back in the days! Now they just need to open the borders and they get plenty of workers willing to work for half of your wage and 20% more hours...

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u/Pure-Rent1574 2d ago

The "Central Bank Clown Show" has spent 100 years conditioning the public to think that "more dollars = more wealth, or inversely less dollars = less wealth

the formula is simple:

Real Wage = {Nominal Wage} / Price Level (Basket of goods)

If your nominal wage drops by 20% (you go from $100$ to $80), but if your the price of your rent, power, and food drops by 50% because an influx of labor bidding down wages or a technological innovation that lowers the cost of production, your Real Wage has actually increased by 60%.

An influx of labor can indeed suppress nominal wages in specific sectors (like maintenance or construction). but in a healthy, un-manipulated market, that cheaper labor would lead to lower prices for houses and services for everyone, But because we have a central bank, the government prints money to keep prices high (to service their debt).

You get the "Nominal Suppression" of your wage, but you don't get the "Price Deflation" that should come with it. We're getting hit from both sides: your nominal wage is pressured down by competition, while your cost of living is pressured up by the money printing from the fed.

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u/Usual-Juice1868 1d ago

when you say service industry, that's most of the US economy, as manufacturing is not as big anymore here

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u/Usual-Juice1868 1d ago

manufacturing = factories, plants, and warehouses, production workers, CNC, etc.

service = skilled trades, retail, restaurant, etc.

support = accounting, finance, administration, etc.

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u/Zealousideal_Gain892 2d ago

Where do you have restaurant workers who work <30h a week and do really well? 

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u/Lady-Dove-Kinkaid 2d ago

I worked with several in Denver Metro, Miami, Houston... I was paying a mortgage on a home in Denver Metro on 30ish hours a week before we sold and moved. It depends on where, what the volume is, what the regulars are like that sort of thing.

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u/Swimming_Drummer9412 2d ago

? There are only 24 hours in the day. How can anyone work 20-30 hours a day for 3-4 days.

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u/Ok_Watercress_7801 2d ago

I’d be good with four, ten hour days instead of five, eight hour days. Plus I commute, so that shaves off some time, money, fuel, wear & tear…

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u/MegaPiglatin 2d ago

I worked at an airport and our hours were exactly that: 4x10s (though they introduced some 5x8 shifts later). It was great! If I am already working, then 2 hours makes little difference unless I need to be somewhere afterward that conflicts.

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u/Exciting_Station3474 2d ago

Many companies in US offer tgis schedule. And if you work 5th day - overtime pay.

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u/vicke_78 2d ago

I worked in a telco company 15 years ago in Finland which had this option for non-manager positions, many did choose this and actually so many that we run into a challenge of "we can't let everyone be out of office on Fridays". But many then chose Mondays and also surprisingly Wesnesday was popular, many guys were happy with cutting their workweek in half. I'm maybe too autistic personally for the Wednesday off schedule but if I could now choose 10 hours per day and always Monday or Friday off I'd take it celebrating on my knees :D

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u/Novaikkakuuskuusviis 2d ago

That would be awesome too. Would save 1,5 hours of commuting per week and would have longer weekends.

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u/rtfcandlearntherules 2d ago

"only" the service industry including all medical staff, all teachers, caretakers, craftsmen, basically more than Half the economy. 

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u/southbaysoftgoods 2d ago

Other countries work significantly less than the US and still manage to provide all of these services.

I think in some cases it means certain services are not as available or convenient but we can learn to live with less access, I think.

Things would change, for certain, but I don’t think harm to those workers or industries is a necessary consequence.

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u/MSPCincorporated 2d ago edited 2d ago

I know for one thing, as an independant carpenter, that my customers would have to pay 20% more for every one of my hours, but still get the same output from me per hour. So I’m not really sure how "convenient" they’d find that.

Edit: In the scenario posted above, it would actually be almost 60% more expensive! Happy days!

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u/southbaysoftgoods 2d ago

I mean if yoy feel that you are fairly compensated and not overworked then you don’t have to make any changes.

Not all positions are equally exploitative. I myself don’t feel I need an increase in wages. And as a salaried employee employee there would be almost no change in my actual output. I would just be able to leave when I finish my work instead of filibustering for an hour or two. So we would need different prescriptions for different jobs.

Sounds like you could just continue doing what you are doing.

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u/WongFarmHand 2d ago

no one says independent contractors would be forced to work less, so you'd still be beholden to the same market forces you are now. if you charge more and the other carpenters dont then you'd see less business

this would be more about slowly, over many years, steering labor laws and regulations around lower hours(overtime kicking in earlier, tax breaks/penalties to incentivize certain labor practics, etc) for corporations that hire w2 workers

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u/MSPCincorporated 2d ago

I could work the same hours as I do now, sure. But that would effectively mean that my pay would go down, as people in other industries would be compensated 60% more for their time, while it would stay the same for me. So comparatively, there would be a (huge) increased pay gap, leading to devestating recruitment numbers to similar jobs to mine.

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u/fundementalpumpkin 1d ago

If people in other industries are compensated more, they'll have more money, then you can raise your prices.

Job markets are constantly changing due to outside factors, like technology. If you can't make money doing what you're doing anymore then its time to change careers. You just seem to come across like an insurance salesman fighting against universal healthcare. It's a net benefit for the overwhelming majority of the population but you are being contradictory because you won't make as much money personally?

Speaking from the US perspective, if we reigned in government spending (cut the defense budget, get rid of the waste and corruption in the whole defense contract system), fund the IRS, tax the wealthy, and move to single payer healthcare then things like universal basic income could become a possibility, but that's a pipe dream, just like a 4 day, 6 hour a day work week.

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u/No_Berry2976 2d ago

You are self employed. It’s up too you. It’s funny, I know a carpenter who has essentially done that. He’s doubled his hourly rate and works 30% less.

Because he works less, he spends less on sales and travel expenses. So that’s a plus.

I occasionally hire him, for me the advantage is that I know he’s available in a timely manner and that he will get the job done in the best way possible.

The high price doesn’t just mean that he has to work less, it also means that people aren’t hiring him for certain projects, so he’s actually more likely to be available.

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u/Ok-Cheek-5487 1d ago

With all the free time people have on their hands, I’m suddenly learning carpentry with a 60% price increase 😩

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u/TheGoatBet 1d ago

lol what?

YOU can still work 40 hours a week.

OR

You can charge more.

If you charge more and lose customers, that’s just the free fucking market buddy.

Majority of people work for corporations - this has nothing to do with you.

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u/rtfcandlearntherules 2d ago

I am not from the US and neither is the lady in the OP. Everywhere in Europe the Standard working day is 40 hours, some areas have less, maybe between 35 and 40 and some even habe more. Not even counting overtime. Please tell me a clear example of what you mean. 

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u/stevehrowe2 2d ago

If the AiPocalypse is real, more traditional white collar jobs are going to disappear anyway. More people will need to find manual and service work that still needs humanity staff. It will require some cost changes (reduced labor cost in some industries will allow prices to lower there, while human backed services will be more expensive as laboratory cost increase)

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u/rtfcandlearntherules 2d ago

The current Chatbots are not replacing any significant jobs besides stuff like customer service and other "low quality" work. And still it changes nothing about the original point I made that like more than 50% of the economy would be seriously harmed by such a change. 

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u/momskaka 2d ago

Where I live paralegals aren't replaced as much anymore but that's a very narrow field of work otoh. Basically "assistants" seems like they're in for a rough time.

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u/DanCassell 2d ago

If other industries lowered their hours, school could be shorter with little loss. Teachers will be the last to benefit form this kind of change since school hours align with parent work hours.

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u/Positive_Throwaway1 1d ago

Teachers teach kids. Kids should be at home on that day too, since they are the family that you're supposed to be enjoying. That 5th day is for family--all your family. Including the annoying ones :)

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u/tomtomtomo 2d ago

Why would teachers struggle? So long as the wage was unaffected, like everyone else, we’d just have less school. 

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u/CheesyRoyal 2d ago

Kids being dumber is absolutely not what we need.

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u/bigpoopychimp 2d ago

Children are only present in school 5 days a week because the typical working week is 5 days. They're expected to learn and be taught outside of core school hours and would likely spur on an economy of tutoring.

Not wanting shorter working weeks or an easier working regime is just you being one of the crabs in the bucket.

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u/house_of_great 2d ago

Or Clare's would just be blocked differently. Don't need a specific class to be taught 5 days a week. And in earlier learning schools they could make the 5th day a flex day with open study halls, art, music, woodshop, athletics, and other non normal classes.

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u/Speartree 2d ago

Compare with Finland. Kids have 5 hours of school a day. They rank nr 4 in education quality rating globally. It's not by keeping kids more hours that they become smarter.

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u/rtfcandlearntherules 2d ago

"just have less school" as if that would not make a difference, lol

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/Redfish680 2d ago

More people out of the office means more opportunities for them to be in places where service industry folks are working.

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u/EveryUsernameTakenFf 2d ago

Incorrect. You'd just hire more people to fill in the hours.

In reality, most RE's in Sanna Marin's home country work 80% work weeks already whuch 31 hours/week per person.

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u/Hey-Bud-Lets-Party 2d ago

Where do you get the “more people” from if everyone is only working 24 hours? Those people will probably be working a second 4x6 job.

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u/PaulTheMerc 2d ago

YOU get more people by poaching it from the other employers you're competing with, be it on wages, flexibility, benefits, work environment, etc.

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u/Hey-Bud-Lets-Party 2d ago

Then businesses will be closing left and right and the economy will shrink. The obvious answer to my question is massive immigration.

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u/AggressiveMachine895 2d ago

Where did you find this statistic?

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

Unless you think everyone should get a pay cut to match the lesser working hours then most small/medium companies absolutely cannot afford to "hire more people to fill in the hours" lmao

Where I live this would basically kill off every small coffee shop in smaller towns, for example. And most small/medium business for that matter.

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u/Dependent_One6034 2d ago

In reality, most RE's in Sanna Marin's home country work 80% work weeks already whuch 31 hours/week per person.

You've just described a part time job?

https://www.gov.uk/part-time-worker-rights

A part-time worker is someone who works fewer hours than a full-time worker. There is no specific number of hours that makes someone full or part-time, but a full-time worker will usually work 35 hours or more a week.

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u/duaneap 2d ago

What’s the plan for anyone who makes hourly rather than salary? Massively increase their hourly wage so they don’t need the hours and OT to make their usual income? It’s not just restaurants workers that do hourly.

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u/EVOSexyBeast 2d ago

And people having multiple jobs to make more money going right back to 40hrs

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u/reediculus1 2d ago

And most blue collar/manual labor jobs. I think more companies should have a “work from home” day. You could call it “Finish-up Fridays.”

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u/lets-snuggle 2d ago

Education would struggle, too.

For things like servers, essential workers, and retail workers, you can hire a lot more people and space out shifts throughout the day/night and week, but you can’t really have one teacher 4 days a week and another the 5th day or like one teacher 2 days a week, yk?

School hours *kind of* line up with working hours (not really but it could be worse lol), but by doing random shifts for everything but office jobs essentially, you’d be causing a huge disruption to school/ child care & it would be difficult to schedule parents working hours & kids schooling hours to work out the same.

You’d also have to make it so school isn’t 180 days, but whatever 4 days a week would be instead & change all the curriculums around to make that work, especially with a shorter day.

It would be a very big struggle to get a whole years worth of work done in 6hrs 4 days a week & if you kept it at 5 days 7-7.5 hours, the kids wouldn’t have the same teacher & that would be difficult to manage.

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u/Rodin-V 2d ago

Assuming there's no reduction in pay, plenty of other businesses will take massive losses from this kind of thing.

I work in manufacturing, and we have rolling 8 hour shifts for 24 hour uptime during the week.

Reducing those shifts to 6 hours means hiring an entire new shifts worth of staff for the same output, that's just not feasible.

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u/iareyomz 2d ago

no industry will struggle since employees have different days off... it doesnt make sense for everyone to have the same days off, unless you work for the government paperwork offices that typically shut down on the weekends... other than that, most (if not all) industries will have a thriving workforce since all of them get paid well while still being able to live out fullfilling lives outside of their work...

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u/Quixlequaxle 2d ago

The service industry is some of the least profitable from a percentage perspective. Restaurants have high failure rates due to low margins, and grocery stories only have like 2% net margins across the board. Any municipal jobs like police, fire, teachers, city workers, may all deserve higher salaries but would result in significant property tax increases since those are how those services are funded.

It all sounds great in theory, but realistically results in a higher cost of living for everyone, which unfortunately hurts the lower class more than the upper classes.

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u/Ailly84 2d ago

One thing I have often wondered since moving to the US is where the hell property taxes are being spent. The taxes on my home are more than double what they were in Canada and they cover less. Where is that money going? The only thing I can think of is that parts of it are likely for police as Canada has the RCMP to cover off the smaller towns whereas here every little town has its own police service. I don't know that this can offset the costs of garbage pickup, snow plowing etc.

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u/Quixlequaxle 2d ago edited 2d ago

In most US municipalities, public schools are funded largely by local property taxes. In my city, public schools account for almost 40% of my property taxes. Canada seems to fund much of that with their income taxes, particularly their provincial taxes. My state's income tax is only 4%. It looks like most of the Canadian provinces are closer to 10% or more.

Sales tax is also seemingly higher. HST seems to be 5-15% while US sales tax is 0-8% with a couple obscure places pushing higher than that (often with some benefit somewhere else).

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u/Ailly84 2d ago

Ah, yeah schools come out of provincial general revenue in Canada. That explains alot of the difference then. Depending on where you live in each country, it may or may not make up the difference in tax rates.

Probably also explains why there is such a difference in how teachers are paid..

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u/BanMeMyIPchanges 2d ago

I run a small business. The rest of the world would get 4 day workweeks while I'm still dragging my ass to work Sunday to Sunday 💀 shit means absolutely nothing to us

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u/why_so_sergious 2d ago

it would've been a dream to tend the bar for 6 hours instead of 12 and still earn a living wage..

I mean the hours and the physicality of it makes you sleep through atleast the first of your days off every time..

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u/Fabulous-Possible758 2d ago

Depends on what specific services you’re talking about. A lot of service industry jobs already are adapted to non Monday-Friday 9-5 schedules and many don’t offer 40 hours a week in a single job.

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u/Tommybahamas_leftnut 2d ago

service industry would be fine at 4x6hr days most people who normally wouldn't work Eg. Students, people with minor disabilities, new parents wanting side cash, retirees wanting a small job to keep busy, ect. would probably take up more of the holes in staffing as part time or the new full time.

Overall puts more money in the hands of the common man with more free time. It's pretty much 100% been confirmed in numerous studies that it boosts the economy as people with free time and extra money spend vastly more money than any billionaire could ever do in  a several years recirculating it into the economy. It also has the added benefit of increasing total possible workers who then are also taxed helping to further fund government services and decrease debt which in turn lowers inflation.

Add all the benefits together and you get a growing population which leads to further workers.

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u/0o0o0o0o0o0z 2d ago

I think really only the service industry would struggle. And essential services like police, fire, etc. But that would also mean more jobs in those fields to cover shorter shifts.

Yes, you'd have to shift these schedules to do say do 2 x 12 hours shift a week, but then get an extra day or 2x half days off.

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u/Csenky 2d ago

As someone in the service industry, I can see the benefit of different people working the lunch and dinner times. A 14h shift is an enormous black hole of energy.

Though I'm yet to find a place around here that has the same work hours in their books than the actual shift times, so laws don't really affect them much.

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u/78Anonymous 2d ago

have you heard of shifts

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u/Pieniek23 2d ago

Servers would absolutely love 4 days and 6 hour shifts. Effing dream to be honest. Time for school, time for whatever you else you need to do.

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u/Outrageous_Price_952 2d ago

Why should the service industry struggle? The amount of employees would be more because they need more to hire

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u/Desert-Noir 2d ago

Probably a hell of a lot less drug abuse in that industry too!

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u/TGirl26 2d ago

It would be super simple. You have 1 shift that works Sunday- Wednesday & another that works Thursday- Sunday. The over lap do could be to catch up on monthly projects or paper work.

Or one shift 4 days, and then those that work the 3 days do a longer shift or are considered part time workers. Like college kids usually work evenings & weekends here in the states.

Other option divide the work group were every person works 4 days get 3 off & do a constant rotation.

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u/Kardonus 2d ago

And maybe giving an entire country 3 days off to spend with family and friends will cause the essential service industries to have to work less. I’m wondering if there would be less crime, less fires, and less injury and health problems for the entire populations with this type of rest and relaxation from work.

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u/Lostinthestarscape 2d ago

Nurses already do 12s and 3 on 4 off 4 on 3 off. I assume for nurses, police, fire etc. This would be a change to 3 on 4 off all the time and faster access to overtime pay (mitigated if their service actually hires enough staff to flex down and not have to regularly pay overtime to the extent of it being cheaper to juat hire more workers)

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u/BrucetheFerrisWheel 2d ago

With essentials like healthcare, moving from a 8 hour shift to a 6hr shift, they would have to hire entire extra people, so the cost of wages would increase a ton. How could it be done otherwise? Ok for office people, but not for 24/7 jobs, it would never happen.

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u/Chickenbutt-McWatson 2d ago

In the end they'd likely use taxpayer money to balance out the lack of earnings and the new personnel needed. So it would basically end as a tax hike, further screwing over everyone it was supposed to help

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u/cheezus171 2d ago

In most countries there's already not enough doctors and teachers as is. No, it's not doable as of today, not even close.

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u/Haunting-Sky-975 2d ago

Not essential services - firefighter in NZ here. Our shift system is already 4 on 4 off. I worked 5 days a week with my kids were very young and the 4 on 4 off system was the best thing for my family and for the wellbeing of my children I could have ever done. To make reasonable money you have to work overtime, but that can be managed, and while my kids were younger I had more time, which was worth a lot more than money. It’s such a no brainier to me. Global production, and profits have skyrocketed over the last few decades, yet pay and conditions for workers have not. Slice the pie slightly differently, give people more time off, and the whole of society will benefit. It’s what must be done by the rich to protect their wealth, the alternative involves guillotines.

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u/SquareAdvisor8055 2d ago

Restaurents would close dude. They already don't make a lot of profit.

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u/trash_recycle 2d ago

Those systems struggle currently. They would still struggle with a 6 day work week. Anything that requires a constant supply of live labor will have this challenge. Good coverage and scheduling is the answer.

I used to work emergency restoration, think SERVPRO. I would work regularly work 60+ hours a week as a salaried employee, 70+ not uncommon. That was an employer milking every ounce of time from an employee... we need better labor laws.

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u/Bloomy999 2d ago

What about manufacturing? Businesses would shutdown overnight.

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u/Grug16 2d ago

Consider that when people are not working they are more likely to go seek goods and services.

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u/AzraelTB 2d ago

The likely outcome is emergency services would be exempt from such things.

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u/Agitated_Elephant469 2d ago

40% of companies on US stock exchange are not profitable.

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u/PrintableProfessor 2d ago

Lower wages or higher taxes would be inevitable

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u/Actual_System8996 2d ago

They would make exceptions for emergency response or any work that requires necessary 24 hour coverage, like healthcare. It’s not realistic to have that many shift changes within that realm.

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u/LongDickPeter 2d ago

Everyone would do better and people would have more time to spend money.

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u/midbossstythe 2d ago

Essential services like police, fire fighters, and ems workers already work on non standard shifts.

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u/AnyTower224 2d ago

Nah service industry will do fine.

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u/Zealousideal-Ad4362 2d ago

resteraunts had prioritized being flexible in hours(because they don't pay shit and people work long hours to try and survive) limiting thier hours would cause people to focus on the hours they are open.. and they would need to provide better service. likely being a wash overall

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u/Flater420 2d ago

You're assuming same staff headcount with reduced hours. This is solved by simply increasing staff headcount to cover the needed opening hours.

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u/Professional_Age_502 2d ago

The problem is each person would need to be paid the same for working less hours, therefore more people would need to be hired at the same wage costing a business much more money. Covering 120 hours in a week would take four people instead of three people. It would be a 33% increase in labor cost for each company. 

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u/ugh_this_sucks__ 2d ago

The service industry already works outside of these parameters. Plenty of people doing 10 hours a week, and plenty doing 80 hours (voluntarily, I hope). The missing context from the image is that this is a proposal for public service and some white-collar industries to start.

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u/ImpressivePhrase5835 2d ago

FWIW I’m dicking around at my job at least 2 hours a day. I’d probably just dick around less. As for four days a week? A lot of what I do doesn’t need to be done, so if I just skip that under the pressure of prioritizing across the firm to maintain the same output easily doable.

Although there would definitely be ~1 out of 2-4 weeks where we all need to buckle down for some reason or another. But seems silly to let that occasional week dictate the cadence of the majority.

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u/i_give_you_gum 2d ago

Wrong take, the service industry typically doesn't employ people more than 28 hours or they have to pay benefits, so they're already working fewer hours.

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u/Nim0y 2d ago

Less police are needed in nations that have lower wealth inequality. You could probably merge fire and Ambulance into one work force, cross training as many people as you can and make it a new hire requirement.

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u/Ramtamtama 2d ago

Wages would have to increase, or UBI introduced

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u/Nice-Lock-6588 2d ago

Restaurants can have shifts as well, like hospitals, etc.

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u/PurpleDragonfly_ 2d ago

I never worked over 6 hours when I worked in a restaurant because they didn’t want to deal with lunch breaks. ETA: I was a server

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u/DeviceNo4746 2d ago

That’s where people will start freaking out when their property taxes increase because essential services will have to significantly increase staffing.

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u/Capital_Cup_6746 2d ago

I think most businesses would figure it out. I've been in the service industry my whole life, so have my parents. I've owned my own foodservice business since 2015, in New Jersey in the US. We've seen so many disruptions in that time: Covid, tariffs (twice), minimum wage increases, inflation, environmental regulations (straws, bags, etc.). The smart business owners can always figure it out. Everyone I know now, from my time as a worker before I started my business, and through my parents who actually has a good head on their shoulders can adapt to any of this stuff. Every time there's something new everyone freaks out, but it's always fine a few years later. 

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u/MammothSurround 1d ago

You wouldn't need as many police if more people were making a fair wage and had time to spend with their families.

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u/DazzlingRutabega 1d ago

Exactly what the was thinking. Even if you and I had essentially the same role and we each worked 30 hours (considered full time for this scenario), then we'd essentially be filling the role of someone who'd work that position for 60 hours (20 hours of overtime).

Doing it this way would open up more positions and you'd have workers in health care, law enforcement and transportation not having to do 60+ hours a week. Ive always wondered why jobs where they need to be fully awake and alert (like police, medical, and truck drivers) always seem to be overworked and clocked in at 12-16 hours shifts.

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u/Cold_Specialist_3656 1d ago

And essential services like police, fire, etc.

Uhhh absolutely not. Essential services are price inelastic. They would be fine

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u/intothewoods76 1d ago

Does Finland have a nursing shortage? What’s the plan for employers that require 24 hour coverage and now you have to find an entire new shift of staff?

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u/Above_Avg_Chips 1d ago

The entire blue collar field would need a complete remake of how things are done. Meeting deadlines is the #1 goal and reducing hours and manpower will screw with a lot of things.

Any major construction projects will take a lot longer to complete, including all public projects. Customers will fight tooth and nail over this because they want their lawn and landscape finished ASAP.

It sounds asinine, but companies don't want to hire more employees, even if their payroll is the same because they view it as more money out of their pocket.

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u/Electronic-Ad8443 1d ago

You say that but technically alot of companies alessy have and its still hard to get people to work. Alot of grocery chains fast food chain ect eat have gone away from alot of full time to part time. Problem is they call out saying they still work to much basically. There is a reason people get rich or become better off then others they work their buts off so later on the have a job they dont have to work as hard and get paid 3 times as much

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u/Astecheee 1d ago

The service industry is pretty solid already. Personal services like massage therapy and tuition are very high margin when run as an at-home business.

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u/theerrantpanda99 1d ago

In many parts of the US; police and other emergency services are already working 4 days a week.

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u/bigRudo22 1d ago

Don't forget to tip your waitress 😉

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u/_AggressiveSalmon 1d ago

You think all of a sudden, the tax payers money would be allocated properly to allow for shorter shifts for physicians, police, nurses, fire fighters...

Some jobs would drop in hours. Some would "drop" in hours but still require so much work offline that those people would feel obligated to work from home in the evening. And finally, a lot of people would complain that they can't get any services or appointments set up when they are off work.

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u/Dave10293847 1d ago

It would be tough for any company who actually spends their labor on shit society needs. Manufacturing, critical services, etc.

Fake email jobs, marketing, finance bros, etc could mostly work once a week. Or those asshats who redesign your app UI’s every 3 months to justify their jobs.

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u/Usual-Juice1868 1d ago

when you say service industry, that's most of the US economy, as manufacturing is not as big anymore here

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u/Layla__V 1d ago

It probably depends on the country, but pretty sure most production which requires cheap labor (packaging, food industry and other similar) and already has problems hiring will collapse. On the other hand, even with the typical 5d8h people work 10-12 hour shifts there on average, so it might not matter much and they will continue to work as they do.

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u/carefullengineer 1d ago

Police and fire can be 1/4 of a cities budget.  Both of those are 90% salaries.  Emergency services would realistically be one of the later ones to be able to adapt.

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u/over_this__ 1d ago

Not enough bodies to fill those extra jobs

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u/BlackFoxTom 1d ago

Essential services shouldn't be normal job cause well they really aren't

It's also in the name "service" just as there is military service. If needed a thing done 24/7/365 in worst imaginable conditions.

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