Thursday Could Be the New Friday

Fewer overall working hours for the same amount of pay could soon become a reality for many employees in California.

📝 A deeper dive… State lawmakers recently introduced legislation to make a 32-hour week the standard for companies with more than 500 workers.

• There would be no reduction in pay, and any employees who work more would receive an overtime rate of at least 1.5x their regular pay rate.
• The idea is that workers can retain the same level of productivity over less hours by working more efficiently, including cutting out unnecessary meetings.

✋ Yes, but… California’s Chamber of Commerce has come out in opposition to the bill, calling it a “job killer.”

• They argue it would end up imposing more costs on businesses, who would effectively be paying a higher hourly wage without a guarantee that workers would be able to increase their productivity to make up for lost time.

💼 Zoom out: Earlier this month, more than three dozen North American companies switched to four-day workweeks as part of a six-month pilot program, including crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

• Many of these companies see it as a way to stand out from their competitors in a tight US labor market; there were a record 5 million more job openings than unemployed Americans in February (the latest month for which data is available).
• California’s 32-hour workweek legislation is similar to a federal bill introduced in Congress last December and endorsed by the Progressive Caucus, though it’s not expected to make any further headway.

+Fun fact: The typical American employee today works 1,767 hours a year. Among developed economies, only four countries – Israel, Korea, Russia and Mexico – put in longer hours on average than the US.