2024-04-11 08:24:59
Let’s look at the economic side of the issue. When people are asked if they want to work less and get more, most people don’t hesitate to say yes. This wording is equivalent to the question “would you accept a fifth increase in salary, and you would have to work the same as you are working now?”. Of course, most people would cheerfully and happily accept such a proposal.
But there is one catch – if the wages of the handyman who serves us, the builder who repairs the shed, the developer of software, the manufacturers of household electrical appliances and all the others increase, it is natural that the prices for us, and therefore our cost of living, will increase by almost the same amount. After all, what if I don’t have to pay the hairdresser more so that she can earn a fifth more in the same hour of cutting hair, and she can rest in peace on Friday. Economic logic would quickly put everything back in place.
It is the same with the expectation of a “four-day work week for the same pay” – it is formed at the intersection of economically contradictory things. If we want to work less and create and earn more, we have to make tireless efforts, implement new technologies and sell products in the most expensive markets. We need to organize work more efficiently and use every minute with maximum benefit, without any distractions and without the slightest respite. But not all people are ready for this and not all will be able to withstand the pressure of increasingly intense work. Innovating, optimizing work and selling a product at a high price is what everyone is trying to do, at least in the private sector. I’m not sure about the state one – after all, the vacation here alone can last up to two and a half months. And this means that 34 weeks out of 52 in the civil service are already working in a four-day regime.
When a person is paid for making a product or providing a service, he is well aware that he will be able to earn the same money only by working one fifth faster. It is easy to imagine the consequences of cutting hair a fifth faster, evaluating the quality of packaged products, setting up a math course for schoolchildren and performing a surgical operation. And most importantly, who among those offering an accelerated work week will be the first to go under the scalpel of an accelerated surgeon?
When the Lithuanian labor market is plagued by a lack of workers, the offer to work for a shorter time resembles a failed anecdote. A shorter work week will reduce the supply of workers and further increase their shortage, increase the number of cases when people are stressed at work due to the lack of workers, and the burnout syndrome will spread. If there is room to optimize work, as in the civil service, it can be shortened to four, three, or even one day a week. However, if the work is already optimized, if a person is already busy in his work, then forcing him to work twenty percent faster is no longer economically feasible.
Almost the only group strongly opposed to the short work week are employers. And this is not because their interest is opposite. The employer is the person in whose mind the balance of the company’s expenses and income is constantly reconciled. This is the only way to ensure the sustainability and continuity of the company’s activities. Therefore, in the mind of the employer, the question of a shorter week and the same salary immediately lights up a red alarm, reports a broken logic, to which he does not know how to respond. Because a working week shorter by one working day means for him a fifth less production, served and satisfied customers, a fifth less opportunity to pay salaries and ensure other benefits of the workplace (additional days off or health insurance).
Which of these losses are people willing to accept? It is not surprising that when asked whether they would accept a shorter work week and receive a lower salary, employees say no.
Returning to the results of the survey in the light of economic logic, it is possible to draw a somewhat unexpected conclusion – the majority of Lithuanian residents do not support the introduction of a shorter working week, because there are no real economic opportunities to introduce it without reducing wages.
2024-04-11 08:24:59