As the French government struggles against militant union opposition to remove its statutory 35-hour week, much of the rest of the developed world is moving headlong towards reduced work weeks.
In Europe lifestyle demands by employees have gone hand in hand with a widening realisation that improvements in technology are eroding the need to work long hours to sustain many businesses. Leading the way towards the six-hour day is Sweden, where innovative employers report that shorter workdays improve productivity by increasing concentration and making it less tempting for employees to seek diversions or bring their private lives into the office.
Working time differences are also a gender issue. An increasing number of countries have introduced rights to request part-time working and other employee-centred benefits such as working reduced hours for women returners. Evidence of the impact of such measures can be seen in the latest figures from Eurostat, the EU statistical agency. These show that although only 20% of women workers without children are on part-time contracts, the proportion working part-time increases with each child to reach 45% for women with three or more children.
A shorter working week can also, of course, arise from economic crises as well as lifestyle choices and productivity experiments. Short time working was commonplace throughout the last downturn and in besieged economies such as Venezuela today where the President has just ordered the public administration to create a three-day weekend to reduce electricity consumption.
Over the next ten years the penetration of integrated smart devices, and wide-scale automation of practically all corporate functions will significantly reduce the demand for human labour and further raise the average skill content of those jobs that do remain. An employment crisis can be avoided either by allowing working age populations to decline — as in Germany and China — or by reducing work weeks. For those countries where working age populations are not falling, skill levels remain low and work weeks remain at traditional levels, the consequence will be even more widespread and long-term unemployment.