The other day, I was reading an article talking with managers who were cutting back their employee’s work weeks from 40 hours to 32 hours in order to save money without having to layoff a chunk of the workforce. Obviously, if you’re one of the people who was at risk of losing your job in said layoffs, you’re probably very happy with this plan. After all, making 4/5ths of your former paycheck is better than making nothing. Much better.
I wonder about the view of the other workers, however. I imagine it would be frustrating to suddenly have your hours cut. But at the same time, I wonder if there is some camaraderie between employees. I know that I have some coworkers that I wouldn’t miss if they suddenly didn’t work here, but others that I would miss desperately. Also, everyone brings something a little bit different to the workforce. Would I be able to successfully take over someone else’s tasks? Would I want to?
Thinking about it, I think this sounds like the best idea. The work week gets shortened to 4 days, but your specific workday is pretty much the same. There isn’t more work to be done, and your list of tasks hasn’t increased. Sure, your paycheck is smaller, but you have the day off every Friday, which has to be great for families. You get an extra day to do all those chores that you need to accomplish on the weekend, which hopefully gives you a bit more free time to spend together. Maybe you have more time to play soccer with your daughter or have an epic game of Risk with your son. Maybe you and your spouse can spend a lazy afternoon in the park.
Sure, it’s not the ideal, and going back to a 40-hour work week is obviously the goal, but there are some good sides to this rough economic period.
A local company cut their salaried employees pay by 30% and they are still expected to work just as hard and forty-plus hours. I guess I would still be happy to have my job. Our state is doing unpaid furloughs, your pay is cut, but you don’t have to work the hours.
[...] frugal question: Megan at Counting My Pennies wonders about sacrificing for the whole — would you give up some of your paycheck to help prevent layoffs at your [...]
There isn’t more work to be done, but I suspect there isn’t less either – and it has to be done in four days instead of five. After all, it’s not like the whole country has changed over at once, so customers, suppliers, etc. are still making demands on that day off.
my hours were cut to 32 which at first wasn’t awful because having every friday off was awesome. then it got to a point where i was missing the money. but now things are to a point where i’ve learned to live off less and the extra time off is really nice. i’m afraid i might be getting spoiled!
It’s kind of great how you can see benefits to everything, isn’t it, miss petite america?
Sounds great in theory but that for me would mean a second job because we are barely making it paycheck to paycheck (we’ve sold so much of our stuff and are living minimally can’t remember the last time I went out). That extra days work means we get to buy food for our family on top of all our bills. A second job is going to want you for more than 8 hours a week so less time with the family. You do what you can to get by but everyone’s finances are different and I think sometimes people forget that.