Hard to say: the mantra of the last twenty years is "to do more with less." This is ubiquitous. For a while this raises productivity.
But, judging by how this has affected my work (tech writing) and my fellow workers, and observing the declining quality of everything I touch and buy, I would guess that eventually you hit some kind of point where it's just obvious that everyone is producing garbage. I haven't been out of the U.S. in seven years, so I can't be sure that it's the same in Europe. But here, it's kind of nauseating. Joanna ----- Original Message ----- As a preface, it should be noted that I'm a complete and utter supporter of "shorter work weeks with no loss in pay". That said I think some of it's proponents overestimate how much of a "job creator" such a policy would be. Remember that the push to work people as hard (or harder) then they can possibly be worked (often during recessions) leads to some burnout productivity but ultimately leads to falls in productivity per hour that can only be marginally compensating by even steeper cuts in compensation (in fact the trendlines of changes in output per hour and the unemployment rate have a PERFECT correlation. see: http://goo.gl/Q6Rni). i suspect that an effective increase in wages per hour corresponding with an enforced cut in hours worked would lead to a large spike in productivity so that not many more workers would be needed to produce the same amount of output as before. Again, i certainly think it should be done (mainly because of the productivity, health and quality of life benefits) but i think it is not a very effective jobs program. it should be implemented along with a jobs program. -- -Nathan Tankus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
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