tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post7315903983142022523..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: People Need to Work Longer Shorter HoursUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-67062662191086204982015-07-11T16:50:55.505-04:002015-07-11T16:50:55.505-04:00Anecdotal evidence: I am a reserve disaster assist...Anecdotal evidence: I am a reserve disaster assistance worker. In my private life I generally work 40 hours or less with many breaks, long lunches and frequent days off. When I work in disaster relief, my agency schedules us for up to 84 hours a week, though I never experienced more than 74 hours personally. Co-ncidentally, disaster workers, are in lesser or greater degrees also motivated by altruism, not just hourly wages. Even with the additional non-wage motivation, disaster colleagues have been observed dozing off during shifts due to fatigue. In the government agency there is no apparent profit motive for management to require such long hours. Lower level managers I have spoken with acknowledged that while going from 8 to ten hours a day can increase productivity in proportion, yet going from 10 to 11 to 12 or more, does not. <br /><br />There are several reasons that disaster work may not be the best place to start to provide evidence that shorter hours are more productive than long hours. - There is the altruism factor, as mentioned.<br />Disaster recovery assignments normally have time horizons of a few months, rarely longer than a year, so even while working 30 days a month 10 hours a day, disaster workers know that the hours will soon slip back to 48 or even 40 hours per week. There are other types of work that also have spurts of long hours followed by shorter: construction work, journalism, politics. I think there are so many factors involved for different industries, specific projects, working conditions, different levels of employee 'ownership" of their work, that it would be difficult to come to an ideal work week for all workers.<br /><br />Still, common sense and casual observation leads me to believe the ideas put forth by Brassey, Chapman, Walker et al, that output per hour decreases after 50 to 55 hours per week can be useful as a general rule even with nice working conditions and employee belief in their mission. I speculate that rough working conditions would reduce that threshhold.Jim Walker, Realtorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18214661357896316373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-83827823085681713732015-07-10T22:05:27.841-04:002015-07-10T22:05:27.841-04:00In the second chapter of A Part-time Job in the Co...In the second chapter of A Part-time Job in the Country -- http://goo.gl/C4k2H7 -- I make the case that factories in rural areas employing a part-time workforce can be made to run faster and more efficiently than identical factories in cities manned with a full-time workforce. <br /><br />For two reasons:<br /><br />First, because workers can work harder and more efficiently for shorter periods of time than for longer, just as in track-and-field the short-distance runners always run faster than the long-distance runners.<br /><br />And secondly, because if wages are tied to output in some equitable way, and assuming the workers are given slightly fewer hours than they might voluntarily prefer, they will strain to earn every penny they can.<br /><br />I use a Jevons diagram to make the case.<br /><br />Luke Leahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11290760894780619646noreply@blogger.com