Over the weekend, a thinktank said that they’d come up with a genius idea: cutting the working week to 21 hours to fix everything.
The working week should be cut to 21 hours to help boost the economy and improve quality of life, a left-wing think tank has said.
The New Economics Foundation claimed in a report the reduction in hours would help to ease unemployment and overwork.
The think tank said people were working longer hours now than 30 years ago even though unemployment was at 2.5 million.
And they said this while missing several important points. Such as, y’know, reality, and that sort of thing.
As far as I can tell, the 21 hour week would consist of three days working. Which, as we all know, is a sign of massive economic success and forward thinking. How this would do anything to benefit the economy, I don’t know – less time for wealth generation means less wealth generation, as far as I can see. That’s certainly been the case with France’s working time limits, which have since been diluted.
Maybe they’re talking about improving the NEF’s own metric of performance: the Happiness Index. Not sure that it would work, though – a four day weekend is a great thing once in a while. If it was every week, how’d you know the difference?
See now your not thinking right – if everyone is on a 21 hour week then there is more opportunity for overtime – overtime is more money = more wealth generation – woohoo!
My maths may be flawed but when has that ever stopped anyone
I’d love to work a three day week – but then, would I be able to generate the missing 40% of my salary over my long weekend?
Joe: a good idea, but if they tried to do it like the French model, then there’d be a limit on the number of hours you can work. So no overtime for you.
Nelly: I dunno. How profitable is the nursery these days?