And on the Fifth Day, We Rested: will we soon work a 4-day week?
In the beginning, Yahweh commanded 6. Then Ford re-tooled it to 5, and thus it has been ever since. Will we heed contemporary calls for a 4-day workweek or will we still be hailing each other ‘Happy Friday!’ for the foreseeable future??
Could the 4-day week happen?
Yes. There is precedent. From our individual perspectives, it might feel like we are spending more time working, and we might be correct. But this feeling is inconsistent with a broader intergenerational perspective, which reveals that we work far less than our forebears. In advanced economies, previous generations used to work as many hours between January and July, as we do today within an entire year (link ).
Whilst systemic, there are at least two intertwined drivers of the trend towards fewer hours worked:?
If reduced work hours reduced total productivity, no agent within a market economy could bear the cost indefinitely. Technological developments have in fact enabled us to become many times more productive with fewer hours worked. Workers in the US for example are 12 times as productive whilst working 43% fewer hours than those in 1870 (link ).
2. Major events changing the work hours of sufficient workers in a brief enough period, to overcome the coordination problem. ?
If one business adopts the 4-day work week, it might boost productivity or employee satisfaction. But if too few companies or industries make the shift, coordination with suppliers, clients, and partners who continue to operate on a 5-day schedule may become more difficult. This lack of coordination could reduce efficiency and potentially negate the productivity benefits within a broader economic network.
Major events including war, the Industrial Revolution, and the shift to a consumer-centred economy have impacted a sufficient number of workers in a sufficiently short period of time to overcome the problem of coordination in re-setting rules around working hours.?
Coordination problems are persistent and require major events to resolve them.? Government lockdowns fixed by fiat the coordination problem of remote working, a full 18 years after the technology for remote working was ubiquitous.?
Will we shift to a 4-day week?
Does our current situation meet those two conditions??
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Will there be productive efficiency gains sufficiently large to overcompensate for the loss of one day of work?
Increasing GDP per capita shows no signs of plateauing, despite us working less and less. Will AI and quantum computing propel productive efficiency beyond the escape velocity needed to overshoot a 20% reduction in time at work? If it lives up to the promise already baked into the market, yes. History is replete with episodes of false dawns. But each time I chat to ChatGPT, I see the light.??
Will there be a major event leading to a reduction in working hours of sufficient people in a short enough period, to overcome the coordination problem?
Were lockdowns that event? Politicians can get drunk on the extent of their control when they reduce reality down to something no more sophisticated than a game of chess. But people aren’t pieces of wood. Locking people down for extended periods of time changed the rules of the game in sufficiently fundamental ways that many previously obedient pawns took what used to be the prerogative of only the King: capitulation from the game itself.?
It is impossible to quantify the impact lockdowns had on people’s attitudes to work and life. But legislating people away from the office for months - in the UK’s case for 50 weeks plus the 2 ‘to flatten the curve’ - has certainly changed social values. The very call for the 4-day workweek appears symptomatic.?
Uncorked by lockdown, the genie of desire for the corporate career has escaped the bottle. But employees can’t decide unilaterally for a 4-day week. Does sufficient willingness exist at national and corporate levels? Not within the mainstream, not yet. I believe a further major event is necessary to re-coordinate incentives to favour the 4-day working week for stakeholders other than employees.?
How likely is such an event? Might we be inching towards a major armed conflict, of mass unemployment perhaps exacerbated by an AI-fuelled new Industrial Revolution, of an omnipotently virulent disease beyond Omicron? I’m no pessimist, but it’s increasingly difficult to believe we aren’t.?
Conclusion
Whilst the ingredients necessary to shift the mainstream to a 4-day working week exist, they are presently latent. It will likely take a major event to stimulate its initiation. That such major events will happen in our future is certain.? But their timing, origin, and form are impossible to predict. Tragedy is a recurring theme in the human story. But so is its apotheosis: the transcendence of our limitations through confronting the inevitability of our suffering. Such a reward would certainly be worth the cost of losing one working day per week.?
Until then I expect most shifts to 4-day work weeks will be limited to small countries (e.g. Iceland), monopoly-like* businesses (e.g. some platform companies), and work teams far removed from operations. By definition, therefore, beyond the mainstream.?
Workers of World Unite! Just be in the office next Friday.?
* By monopoly-like I mean resembling a monopoly in all but name.
Sources:
Chief Executive Officer at Mutiara Powertech Sdn Bhd
1 个月Wow. Thanks for another great article Yahya. The shortening of working hours is not really evident to a lay person like myself. Most of us tend to work a lot more then our previous generations. We work more hours with more technology making us more productive. With less full time employment. Many more people are part employed. Thia often hides unemployment. Contract employment has changed things in many ways. Rights of workers are likely to change dramatically. In short what you have touched upon is a matter that needs to be debated in a holistic fashion. One thing I would like you to write about is a right that needs to be considered for all countries and for all citizens. That is universal basic income. The right of all citizens to be guaranteed an income that provides the basic needs of food and shelter and for society to ensure health care and education for everyone. This is a matter often discussed in rich countries but something I think should happen in all countries of the world. Rich or poor. This is not a socialist utopia I am talking about but a debate that has been ongoing in New Zealand, the US, Canada and in Europe. Your thoughts?