Monday, February 15, 2010

Cut working week to 21 hours

Read this report in the BBC. I agree with the general thrust of the suggestion, i.e. that people should work fewer hours and earn less, so that more people can be employed and older workers can continue to work longer. This will give a better balance and improve the quality of life.

We do not need to go all the way down to 21 hours, but 35 hours would be a good start.

In Singapore, many people are putting in 60 hour weeks. Instead of working fewer hours with higher productivity, we are working longer hours. This is why we have one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what Economic Strategy Committee should consider to solve unemployment , to give more family time and improve the quality of life.
Quality of life is unfortunately defined as having more material things money can buy and not time, relationship and happiness money cannot buy.Currently it is skewed at the expense of family life, ie. we live to work to have more money to buy more things and have only 5% of the time and life to enjoy them and that leaves nothing for family and relationship.

February 15, 2010 8:40 PM
Parallax said...

As a newcomer to the workforce, I was pretty much astounded by how little freetime a working person has. All my school life it has been advocated to have an enriching life outside of your main preoccupation [studying], and to suddenly have none at all when working, is really quite a surprise.

And there seems to be a huge juxtaposition between industry and office workers, who put in a very disproportionately different working hours. Even in the same office, management is often regarded as early-leavers, while others stay to toil into the night. Some factories are even rushing through CNY day 1 and 2, thanks to foreign labour who don't mind holidays over OT money.

February 16, 2010 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...

99.99% of companies and govt ministers will flip at this suggestion. 30 yrs ago govt will say this is communism. :)

I for one, am supportive of policies such as minimum wage, max working hours, moderate pro-labour regulations. Problem is implementation -- the devil is in the details.

February 16, 2010 4:06 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...

Communism is a good ideology. Social democracy, which embraces similar principles, is better.

They are better than exploitative, free market economy that is practiced in many countries.

February 16, 2010 4:13 PM
Anonymous said...

do you know the usual working hours of a security guard. is it (8+4)x 6 and 1 x rest day ?
how to ..

February 20, 2010 10:56 AM

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