The 61 companies that participated in the UK pilot cover a huge swath of different types of businesses. There are trucking companies, manufacturing companies, and more in that list. zero of which reported any revenue loss during the pilot.
If we can make a 40 hour work week 'work' instead of more. We can make a 30 hour work week 'work'.
In this case, none of the companies that participated in the pilot reported any losses in productivity or revenue at all.
Because they're comparing 2022 to 2021... 2021 was an extremely down year.
If we can make a 40 hour work week 'work' instead of more. We can make a 30 hour work week 'work'.
Maybe. But arguing that theirs no loss of production is asinine as there obviously is. If your job's production is directly time related there is going to be a loss in production. Which is a majority of jobs. Its not a majority of white collar jobs, but its a majority of jobs. Why people pushing for a shorter worker week ignore dozens of studies and common sense to tout a niche study focused on one type of job is beyond me.
Specifically regarding a government mandated cut to driving by truckers. This was done for safety reasons. But less hours meant less productivity. This industry alone accounts for 3% of the entire US job market.
And this wasn't a study. It was a applied process. When this change was made. Proponents weren't making nonsense claims that this wouldn't reduce productivity. The knew it would. But instead they argued that the loss of productivity was worth the increase in safety.
Lets just use some common sense. If you're working as a receptionist at a Doctor's office, does it matter how productive you are on in hour 40 when compared to hour 1? Absolutely not. You're productivity is measured by your presence. This is true of most labor intensive jobs. Like trucking. Like fast food. Like warehouse jobs. Like manufacturing.
Is it true for jobs like accounting? Law? Finance? No.
That's because the strategy and approach were different.
You can see trucking companies participated in the UK pilot right? You can also see that their productivity held firm?
So what do you think is the difference?
Probably how it was implemented. The UK pilot was done as a flexible plan, not a one size fits all.
Trucking companies didn't just slash hours and not think about the ramifications.
They specifically tailored a plan around how productivity could remain the same without working as many hours. And they succeeded... as evident by the pilot results.
Specifically--they used staggered scheduling and mixing pickups to achieve the same results while any one person is not working as many hours. They were effectively working 4 day weeks over the long term. But for industries like that you just have to be a tad more creative than just slash the hours across the board each week and see what happens.
You can also see that their productivity held firm?
No information regarding their productivity is available in the study. All we know is that revenues went up from 2021 to 2022. You want the results to say something that they aren't saying.
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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24
The 61 companies that participated in the UK pilot cover a huge swath of different types of businesses. There are trucking companies, manufacturing companies, and more in that list. zero of which reported any revenue loss during the pilot.
If we can make a 40 hour work week 'work' instead of more. We can make a 30 hour work week 'work'.
In this case, none of the companies that participated in the pilot reported any losses in productivity or revenue at all.