How much time will we spend working in the future?
Philosophy 888
The father of the eight-hour workday is considered to be the American car industry magnate Henry Ford. On January 5, 1914 oman mobile phone numbers database he shortened the workday from 9 to 8 hours, while raising wages from $3 to $5 per shift.
The competition was quite skeptical about this decision, but quickly realized its validity: the best mechanics from all over the country came to work at Ford Motor Company and work efficiency increased significantly. In just two years, Ford managed to double its profits.
Despite ample evidence of the effectiveness of such a system, the United States officially moved to an 8-hour workday 23 years later, following a series of strikes and the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1937.
Contrary to popular belief, the author of this innovative idea was not Henry Ford. As early as 1593, King Philip II in his decree Ordenanzas de Felipe II not only introduced an 8-hour workday, but also ordered an even distribution of work during the day. In order to avoid the scorching sun, workers had to toil for four hours in the morning and four hours in the evening.
The next step towards the schedule we know
was taken in 1810 by Robert Owen. First, he established a 10-hour working day in his New Lanark factory (previously people had to work 14-16 hours), and after seven years he reduced it to eight hours. Owen even came up with a special slogan:
“Eight hours for work, eight hours for play, and eight hours for rest.”
Regardless of the successes of trade unions, the 5-day workweek was a rarity for a long time. It was not until the early 20th century that the practice was implemented on a mass scale.
- India was the first Asian country to introduce the “8 hours a day, 5 days a week” law in 1912.
- In 1917, the socialists’ idea of a 40-hour work week was legalized in the Soviet Union.
- In most European countries, such a system was adopted in 1919 after a series of trade union strikes paralysed the economy.
- In Japan, the first company to move to a 40-hour workweek was Kawasaki in 1919. The rest of the country followed 28 years later after the Labor Standards Act was passed.
- One of the last countries to move to an 8-hour workday was Australia in 1947.
What is the situation now?
In the days of Ford and Owen, cutting working hours by almost half – from 14 hours to 8 – was indeed revolutionary. Now, work does not end when we leave the office – it often accompanies us at home and consumes our free time.
According to the Polish Labor Code sms marketing for the insurance sector: an effective guide working time cannot exceed 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. How does it look in other countries?
According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the highest number of workaholics live in Colombia (47.6 hours per week), Turkey (46.5) and Mexico (44.9).
In Japan, overtime is a very common phenomenon, and it causes over two thousand deaths every year . The phenomenon even has its own name – “karosi.”
How much time will we spend working in the future?
Ideas for further reductions in working hours are being discussed and tested in many countries. As recently as 2010 phone database the British New Economics Foundation proposed introducing a 21-hour workweek.
According to the study authors, this will help break the vicious circle: people live to work, work to earn, earn to spend more. Changing the way we work will help:
- reduce stress and burnout levels;
- protect the environment: factories will produce less and people will consume less;
- distribute paid work evenly across society, reducing unemployment and social inequality.
New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to officially move to a 5-day workweek. Now New Zealanders are fighting to reduce that to 4 days.
In 2018, New Zealand company Perpetual Guardian experimented with reducing working hours to 30 hours and 4 days per week, while maintaining pay. The
- productivity increased by 20%;
- Team stress levels dropped from 45% to 38%;
- Work-life balance improved from 54% to 78%.
Over the course of the entire year, the working week of employees in many companies was 4-5 hours shorter, as a result of which productivity remained at the same level and
the number of sick leaves decreased.
Another similar experiment took place in the municipality of Gothenburg in Sweden. Some companies have been practicing a 6-hour workday for more than two years without reducing wages. As a result, sickness costs have fallen and the general mood of employees has improved.
At the International Economic Forum in Davos in 2019, experts also supported the idea of moving to a 4-day work week. Adam Grant, a psychologist from the Wharton School in Pennsylvania, and Rutger Bregman, an economist and author of Utopia for the Realists , believe that such a measure will allow people to focus better and work the same amount of time, but with greater quality and creativity. Employees will show greater loyalty to the organization.
We don’t know what will happen next. Perhaps the whole world will follow the example of Elon Musk, who works about 120 hours a week. Perhaps the scenario described by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, according to which we will work only 15 hours a week thanks to automation, new technologies and increased productivity, will come true.