[TomMckenny]

In principle from a capital stand point, it is always better to have one unemployed person and one over worked person who is terrified of becoming unemployed than two employed people. So reducing workload to increase employment rates is completely unacceptable to those who own society.

Wage presure from near full employment is also undesireable to them but must be considered the lesser of two evils and is fairly fudge-able by changing the definition of employed.

[dahfizz]

That's a pretty big claim you're making with nothing to back it up.

Do you think it's the "terror" that makes that situation prefferable from a "capital stand point"? In times of historically low unemployment, I hardly think the general populace is holding such terror. And even so, why would splitting the work reduce this terror?

[TomMckenny]

>That's a pretty big claim you're making with nothing to back it up.

It includes the following assumptions:

Low unemployment causes upward wage pressure.

Organizations are aware of this.

Organizations cooperate politically to achieve their goals.

>In times of historically low unemployment, I hardly think the general populace is holding such terror.

Exactly. Lower unemployment increases confidence. (and reduced hours would lower unemployment)

Higher up in this thread is a suggestion that: 1) almost all productivity comes from a few workers and 2) it is impossible to reduce their work load and 3) employers retain low productivity workers for long hours to encourage them. All of these assumptions are highly dubious but the theory is popular because it appeals to comforting, entrenched ideas. Which is why no one notices that is a big claim with nothing backing it up.

[barry-cotter]

> In principle from a capital stand point, it is always better to have one unemployed person and one over worked person who is terrified of becoming unemployed than two employed people.

It’s preferable to have more production, which could be one person working 60 hours or two working 30 hours. Sometimes due to lower switching and communication costs and returns to specialisation/learning by doing 60 hours will be more productive. Sometimes the costs are low and the returns to one person working more hours will be low and it won’t be. If there are fixed costs to employing a single worker this will militate against splitting up the work.

> So reducing workload to increase employment rates is completely unacceptable to those who own society.

Then the German system of Kurzarbeit[1] during economic downturns should be unworkable. It isn’t, it’s just difficult to coordinate.

> Wage presure from near full employment is also undesireable to them but must be considered the lesser of two evils and is fairly fudge-able by changing the definition of employed.

Changing definitions do not affect whether there are too many or too few workers for the production demanded. If there’s an increase in demand for labour some people will work more and some people will come out of unemployment as wages are bid up by the greater demand.

[1]https://pseudoerasmus.com/2014/08/01/anthropology-of-financi...

> In the 2008-9 recession, in response to falling orders, German firms reduced labour utilisation by cutting back work hours rather than by laying off workers. In fact, a whopping 90% of the drop in total labour inputs in the German economy in the Great Recession is to be explained by reduction of hours per worker ! This kind of “labour hoarding” does not normally happen during recessions in other countries, but did happen in Germany this time. This mini-miracle now has people on the centre-left all over the world seeking ways to replicate it in other countries, and has spawned a substantial literature.

> In Germany, firms face restrictions on sacking workers in the first place, but in case of economic difficulties, they can apply to the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) for “short time” or Kurzarbeit. (Not the same as the 35-hour work week made famous by France, which is a statutory definition of full-time work.) The application entails a protocol for reducing work hours per worker, with the request triggering a process of consultations between the BA, management and works councils inside firms. After an agreement, workers can receive unemployment compensation in proportion to the loss in working hours.