Back In Style: The Four Day Work Week
Back In Style: The Four Day Work Week
Retro is back in style again — but this time it’s the four day work week, not bell bottoms, making a comeback. All over the country, employers and employees are seeing the benefit that the four day (ten hour/day) week has to both “employees and businesses bottom lines” by providing commuters with a little relief from high gas prices. City employees in Birmingham, AL, for example, are moving to the four day week because, as the mayor’s chief of staff explains: “We are doing it in an effort to help employees save some money on gasoline.” Counties in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York are following suit, estimating that cutting out two commutes per week could save employees 20% on fuel costs and 65 million gallons of gas per day.
First made popular during the late 1970’s when gas prices first rose to, at that time, astronomical levels, the four day work week is designed to help the 44% of people who report that gas prices have affected their commute. Unfortunately, the late 1970’s was one of the most badly faring economic periods in recent history recent US economic history in terms of inflation, unemployment and general economic unrest.
Although use of mass transit has skyrocketed to its highest ridership in 50 years, still only 5% of workers commute by public transit, and fewer than 20% of households have easy access to buses or trains. Paul Krugman rightly notes that many of our American cities are not equipped with public transportation systems, leaving millions of Americans with no choice but to drive long distances and depend on their employers, or schools, to administer these alternative commuting arrangements.
Although the four day work week might be a short term fix for high gas prices, America needs to make some long term changes both in infrastructure development and in energy consumption — because as much as workers may love the idea of the four day work week, nobody loves the idea of four day pay.
2 Responses to “Back In Style: The Four Day Work Week”
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Gee, how considerate of them.
The money saved by not working that one day will hardly compare to the income lost due to losing a full day of work.
The REAL reason for the cut… their own expenses. The cost of electricity is also skyrocketing with oil prices.
Another factor, if you have hourly workers, certain benefits come from working a full 40-hour week (full time), which is difficult to achieve when you only work four days a week (part time).
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:35 pmA four day work week sounds like a good idea in theory. It cuts out a day of commuting, while keeping the same amount of work hours (10-hour days-that’s still full-time). The problem would come in the form of productivity. On average, a full time employee, working 8 hours a day, is only productive for about 5-6 hrs. Two to three hours of the work day are spent trying to find ways to ‘relax’. If the work day were to be expanded to 10 hours, the loss of productivity would be substantial. When’s the last time you devoted a constant 10 hours to doing something? We just don’t have that kind of attention span.
A 4 day work week doesn’t help people who work for companies that provide services 5 or 6 days a week (such as UPS). Someone needs to be there running the place. Expanding public transportation would be initially costly, but extremely beneficial in the long-run. It would cut down carbon emissions, ease traffic patterns (thereby reducing the risks of accidents), promote a more healthy workforce (you have to walk to a bus/train stop), the list could go on and on. Think about it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm