should the UK have a 4 day working week?

Question

so, we all work really hard (when not on yahoo answers), and my weekends are just never long enough. would people prefer to have a 3 day weekend? would you vote for a political party which offered a 4 day working week?

i'm thinking i might have an idea here....

to super bright brainy people, how would this affect our economy? perhaps we could all work from 8am-6pm to make up the lost hours? would the extra day shopping improve our economy?

Answer 1

You might get fed up with the extra leisure time once the novelty wore off. Plus, it's a downer to go back to work after a two day break - would a three day break result in an even bigger downer upon return?! Anyway, it would probably lead to more drunkenness and poor behaviour - a lot of people in this country act like idiots when they go out - and this would probably mean people going out more. Then there's the expense of doing that - there's lots of people in this country in debt as it is

Answer 2

How can we get a 4 day paintings week interior the U.S.? I stay interior the city and the popular public look not engaged on Fridays. Why? each and every time I take off to do issues on a Friday the international is so overcrowded. that is like rush hour All Day! site visitors is everywhere, long lines on the mall, long lines at banks, at supermarkets, everywhere! So it would besides be a 4 day paintings week. besides I merely left one in all those jobs that quite had not something to do yet watch for the telephone to ring. It made that hours dribble by ability of so gradual. I asked to be positioned section time, i became informed no. they had quite have me (a secretary) sparkling the place of work than to enable me have an afternoon off. So particular, the U.ok. ought to have a 4 day paintings week.

Answer 3

No, the UK has a strong ecomony, but this is based on continous production and sales, if we only worked 8-6 then for half the week nothing would be produced and very soon our economy would go into meltdown.

You'd end up with no job, then loose your house and car.

So not a good idea, if you want a four day week go and work for a flexible employer or work part time, the economy won't be effected much then.

Answer 4

I don't think the economy will suffer, becuase what may be lost from production, will be gained in the leisure/entertainment industries.

We are given better tools (computers and machinery) to be able to do more work in a day, and yet instead of us actually benefitting from this, we end up working longer.

Who in their right mind would volunteer to work 5 days and have two off? This kind of working week has come from centruies old ideology where governments and employers controlled everything.

We spend a minimum of 8 hours at work (it's acutally longer when you include your commute time and getting ready for work etc) and then we come home tired with a few hours to spare (in which time we have chores to do like cooking, looking after kids, keeping on track of normal every day life things) and then it's off to bed so you can do it all again tomorrow. And in winter it's cold and dark when you set off in the morning (we work during all the daylight) and then it's dark when you set off home.

If a 4-day week doesn't come off, i'd like to see a shorter working day at least. Perhaps something like the school day 8am-2pm or 9am-3pm, that would give us more time to enjoy our evenings and be less resentful of being at work.

I love my job, i'm probably one of a small minority that do, but i still resent being at work all day 5 days a week when i could be spending that time with family and firends or doing things for myself.

Answer 5

Although this is a very nice idea it is probably unfeasible. Your employer would have to reduce your wages to reflect that you are working for less time, this is essential as certain service industries (pub, leisure, etc) would have to increase their headcount to cope with the extra people.

You would want more money as you would have more free time to spend it. We all know that time off work means time spending money.

Property prices would not drop as a result, and some people would even try to fit in two jobs, although prices in the leisure sector may stabilise, although in reality they would probably go up to cover the additional headcount.

It would be nice though.

Answer 6

Who gets the 4 day week? Everyone? There are many more jobs than the average 9-5 mon to fri in the office.

We dont have enough skilled labour in this country to allow this to happen. If people want to work four days then they should get a job that allows you to.

Answer 7

it is all very well to say we would spend more on leisure services, but who would provide these if the lesisure industry work a 4 day week also? the simple fact is, we work less, we produce less, our income (both national income and individual wages) falls, and we are worse off. also, some people would continue to work 5 days, getting overtime pay for 5th day. this would increase costs of production, and cause inflation. to cope with raising prices, we would all have to do overtime, so we would be back to where we started, working a 5 day week. only difference is inflation would be worse. sorry to ruin the slobs' dreams, but reality sucks

Answer 8

Many jobs require physical attendence 5 or even 7 days a week at the workplace. I think that your suggestion would lead to fatigue, because if you work really hard, performance drops off at some point.

Answer 9

Sorry to disagree.
The more people you employ the higher the fringe benefit costs currently running @ about 27%
If you want less effort and more productivity the first thing to do is to get your manager out of his office to sit by two employees in each activity. After three days in each he might have some idea what his workforce is doing.
By now, if he has half a brain, he will realise he can obtain increased productivity just by enabling the employee to do their job.
At this stage, and if he is with it, he will throw the software out of the window and get it rewritten to resemble the actual and not someone's idea of what's going on.
This is called Management and we don't have many of them.

Answer 10

I think for the wages a lot of people get they're only paid for four days anyway, it's a disgrace when all the while prices are going up, especially petrol and houses. Fat cats should be taxed 75%!