That 21 Hour Working Week Concept

Okay, the report from the New Economics Forum was last week, but I've been a tad busy with work and life.

Now this actually makes a kind of sense, both from employee and employer perspectives, but with some important caveats.

From the employee standpoint, a 4 day weekend is no bad thing - plenty more time to smell the roses and enjoy life.

From the employers standpoint, they ALL can add Saturday as a regular working week. Offices generally have Saturdays off, but having two people doing the same job 3 days a week gives an extra full day - and hence get projects completed quicker, and the opportunity to do more work in a year - an extra 52 days productivity is nothing to sniff at for a profitable firm.

Now for the problems! Now I personally would be happy to drop my contracting wages to a 3 days a week, but that's me - can't quite see everyone jumping for joy. Struggling with a mortgage? Well, hell, struggle some more! Without reducing household debt substantially, this isn't going to go anywhere.

That's a hard sell. Economically speaking, from an individuals perspective, this would be a bad thing without a boost in wages that didn't have a corresponding boost in inflation. Given the economic situation I can't quite see businesses being happy to drop wages 20% in exchange for a 40% drop in the working week, and then - for those doing okay or better in the current climate - pay the same for another person to work the extra three days. Unless they're a business with a major mark-up that's a no-can-do.

And why base it on 7 hours a day? Why not 8? A drop from 37.5 hours to 24 hours a week is a slightly less bitter pill to swallow.

And the most important bit. What if businesses don't want to do this? Another fucking law? Use the carrot of tax cuts, sure, but keep any legal stick the hell out of this!

In a short, it's a lovely dream, but one I strongly doubt we shall see. The business climate is pretty good for it right now, but the personal debt one looks pretty unsurmountable.