These places already tried a 32-hour workweek. Here's what happened.
“A four-day week can absolutely work for some businesses. The mistake is assuming that because it works for one type of company, it can be applied to the entire economy.”
“One risk is that we turn five days of work into four days of stress. If making the model work requires higher prices, fewer employees, reduced hours or asking the same workers to carry a heavier workload, then the cost did not disappear. It just moved somewhere else.”
Newsweek reviews the actual outcomes from the UK's 61-company pilot, Germany's 45-organization trial, Portugal's 41-company program, and the South Africa and Botswana study, then examines the proposed federal legislation from Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Mark Takano. Jay is quoted on why the model works for some business types and breaks against others. Software companies with meeting-heavy calendars can absorb reduced hours. Hospitals, restaurants, retail, and manufacturing cannot, because coverage requirements do not compress. The Aldebert read: the labor cost never actually disappears in a four-day model, it just moves somewhere else on the P&L, and small businesses with narrow margins feel that move first.
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