Working week should be 21 hours, says New Economic Foundation
British workers may be toiling hard to ward off unemployment, but the future could bring an average of only 21 hours a week chained to their desk.
A report by the influential thinktank, the New Economic Foundation, says over-consumption, rising unemployment, increasing inequality and deteriorating work-life balance can be tackled by radically altering working life.
Reducing the working week could also defuse the pensions time bomb by ensuring employees are healthy enough to work later in life.
Citing the example of Utah, the study shows how the US state’s decision in 2008 to place all public-sector workers on a four-day week saved energy, reduced absenteeism and increased productivity.
The report argues that 21 hours a week is already close to the average length of time spent in paid employment.
“A lot of this is already happening,” said the report’s joint author, Andrew Simms of the NEF. “Job sharing is common practice … It’s going to be increasing. Maybe we’ll have less income and more time.
“Other than the benefit of having more time, what will happen is a reduction in inequality and the potential to be better-quality friends, partners and parents engaging more with communities.
“There is this issue of people retiring and their lives collapse. So this is a good opportunity for people to fulfil themselves. We are not saying this should be imposed. We’re suggesting this should be more of a norm.”
An interesting idea that will take some major shifts in cultural thinking, consuming, and business practices for a number of places. For example, the company I work for — while “full time” — often results in weeks where greater than 40 hours are put in, and that is only possible because they have full-time employees who don’t receive over-time. Now, if they had to pay for that over-time, I could see things shifting and the acceptance of 30 hour weeks possibly coming about. But it would definitely take something major to make that shift.
