Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek

I'm Australian but have lived in Europe for a long time. When I begin to consider moving back, one of the things that puts me off is that 4 weeks is pretty much universal in Australia, plus in Australia I think it's pretty standard to have a fixed number of days you're allowed to be sick. I'm too used to having 6 weeks holidays and essentially unlimited sick leave (as long as it's legitimately required).

It's a more grown-up arrangement where businesses realise that regular time off (and as much time as you need if ill) increases happiness and therefore productivity.

I still miss the food at home, though.

> Moving back to the US after living abroad I was used to month long holidays. I applied to a few companies and tried to negotiate 5 weeks PTO. They wouldn't budge. Then 4 weeks. Still no. I offered to drop my salary in exchange for vacation. Still no. I asked HR why everything else was negotiable except PTO and they told me I would have more time off then people who've been there for 7+ years.

One of the reasons I work in the education sector is the generous (compared to startups / most tech companies, anyway) PTO.

We get all of the big holidays off (I think 12) and we have 2-4 weeks of vacation (depending on length of employment) and we have two weeks of paid medical leave (which accumulates, so after the first couple of years you have massive amounts banked) and paid maternity/paternity.

Mine isn't the only employer like this, there are plenty of others, it's not hard to find one. The key to look for is "work life balance." Government jobs, non-profits, education, these sorts of areas - they know they can't compete with tech company salaries but can make up for it in other ways. PTO is only a part of that.

It's not quite the 4 day a week dream job, but there are options available if you look. And as a bonus, you might find yourself more aligned with the mission of the organization than you would at a for-profit tech company.

This is the one thing I really hate about American work culture. It really is pervasive throughout the economy, capitalism here optimizes for money over happiness and there just aren’t many companies that are willing to release their grip on you. My employer is now trying to transition to three days a week in the office and the reasoning is totally capitalistic even though it will most likely reduce overall happiness, they also will not approve a month off PTO even though it’s apparently unlimited, the reasoning was basically “we don’t work that way”.

So many things are wrong with American work culture and there’s nothing most people can do about it.

Asking for more pay with their standard PTO and as-needed UTO (Unpaid Time Off) might have been more successful.

This is interesting.

In the US, I have found that what HR will tell you is different than what your hiring manager will enforce.

My hiring managers were often much more permissive and allowed 4 day work weeks and “unlimited” time off provided it was not detrimental to the team. This also meant that when there was a legitimate emergency; they expected you to assist.

I have heard many horror stories but have been luck not to experience most of them at this point in my career.

I don't know about the US but in the Bay Area PTO hasn't been negotiable for about seven years. It's all "unlimited" now and so there are no official numbers to compare anymore.

The good news is that in large publicly traded companies people routinely fly back to India for a month so 4-week vacations are a thing if you are good at leetcode.

> They wouldn't budge.

I don't know if this is a problem specific to PTO. In general, after 20+ years of working, I've found US employers to be pretty inflexible on all terms/aspects of your working life besides compensation. They may (or often may not) be willing to negotiate pay, but will almost never budge when it comes to:

- Vacation / PTO

- Unpaid leave

- Health benefits

- Financial benefits like 401(k) or life insurance

- IP ownership

- Moonlighting or second jobs

- Schedule flexibility

- Paid training

- Company equipment

These things tend to be "take it or leave it--we won't accept changes to our boilerplate agreement!"

Damn, I can't even afford healthcare at my current wage in digital marketing. The plans I've found would take up about 10% of my yearly income and I'm late-20's, healthy, no pre-existing, non-smoker, etc.

Even with that, the pay is barely enough to qualify me for my apartment, which is artificially low in rent since I moved in during peak COVID and have had low rent increases.

The Ants and the Grasshopper - Aesop

https://read.gov/aesop/052.html

I keep hearing this but home ownership percentage is comparable to past generations when you actually look at the data.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Also gen z has surpassed millennials and genx in home ownership (with comparable timing).

""In 2022, 30% of 25-year-olds owned a home. At the same age 28% of millennials, and 27% of Gen Xers owned homes, according to real estate brokerage, Redfin.""

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buyi...

Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming. Its cool to not care or try. And according to instagram if you're not a millionaire by age 25 then you're a loser. So why even try?

That being said I see nothing wrong with a 4 day work week.

Exactly why bother participating when the whole thing is rigged against you. May as well try and claw some of your life back.

So you're not going to be able to live where most people want to live. That's far different from having no house.

"Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did.

See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic.

But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.

As someone who considers themselves to be pretty motivated and entrepreneurial, I look around and see very little opportunity. Businesses that actually make money trade at all time high multiples while funding for a new business is non existent. Want to buy a business? Good luck, high interest rates squeeze margins to nothing.

The financialization of housing means you’re competing with massive hedge funds when you want to buy a home or invest in real estate.

Incredible government defect spending ensures more inflation which will outpace salary increases.

This is how I’ve heard the late 70s/early 80s as being described: general malaise.

Probably the same as it's ever been. Out of three random employees, you have one who's just going through the motions, one who's working hard, and one who's actively hostile. Which one gets the money when review time rolls around?

That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV.

I'm not saying it's an ideal situation to be faced with, but tuning out is just going to make it worse.

maybe young people don't want to work hard because history has proven time and time again that "working hard" doesn't make you happy, it's actually the opposite and they have now come to realize that balance is key?

It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead.

I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board.

Now not everything is sunshine and roses (well there is a lot of both, but you know what I mean). The price is I have to work remotely, I had to learn a new language, and Amazon delivery is more like two weeks than 2 days and the shipping is not free. There are definitely things that I miss, but nothing compared to what I gain.

To be clear - you can read the crystal ball much like the whole generation in terms of whats going to happen in the future? I'm glad everyone knows how the future is written, I for one don't know and am quite curious.

This is precisely why fascism is on the rise, and I’m not being hyperbolic

It’s reminiscent of the lead up to the drug war that was coinciding with the antiwar movement

Young people looked around and said this society is not working for us, and instead of creating a new society that actually takes care of people, people voted for Nixon and doubled down on maximum alienation capitalism

Add in a certain amount of awareness that more consumption as in bigger car, more square feet and shorter product replacement cycles isn't just good.

Sure, few people would actively reject an opportunity to have a high footprint life, but the relative attractivity between footprint maximization and having other priorities in life certainly aren't the same as they used to be in the days of infinite growth illusions.

The effect you describe is much stronger I think, but they are not competing, they complement each other.

My theory is that compared to people in the 60s say, there are more things to do with your free time now, to the point where they are sometimes in conflict. Before you’d get home and all you could do was have a beer and maybe watch tv, listen to the radio, read a book. Now we are so connected to so many things, and we know about all the activities possible around us through social media, that work is in the way. Work would define life, now it’s just something to pay the bills. Sure, not universal, people still have professional goals, I want to change careers, I want to finish that project at work because I think it’s interesting and would benefit people, but I would not get in the way of working 4x8 instead of 5x8 for that.

I want to play games, learn about AI, 3D printing, CAD, mountain bike, go to trivia, travel to Thailand, travel to Europe, see family across the globe, get more flexible, build muscle, etc etc etc. None of them are at work.

Peasants under Feudalism had zero hope progressing.

Upward mobility is probably something every generation has complained about throughout history. Economic nihilism isn’t the answer.

Our future generations count on us to improve whatever cards we’re dealt

Why is wanting an improved work life balance (and thus improving things like health (mental/physical) and family and happiness) seen as not wanting to “work hard”?

Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners.

Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.

As someone who worked very hard for 10y and was paid in some top percentile, the incentives still ran out. I'm bored of the meaningless high paid work, single and likely socially stunted and emotionally blunted from workaholism. But at least I can buy a house where none of my loved ones can, and who will eventually be priced out of renting even basement apts nearby.

As someone living in a low cost of living area (happily) and working in an unsexy but profitable tech job that was basically begging to hire anyone with a degree, I really dont understand this rhetoric.

> No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live.

That's not even true. I have a large set of anecdata, with people below median income buying houses, and people in the 5% being afraid to buy a house (too risk averse to the point of being detrimental).

If owning a house is your priority, you will make it work. My conclusion is that a large set of people just don't have the basic skills to maintain a house, or simply don't want that responsibility, despite being able to afford it.

> So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?

What's your plan for when you're 50, broke and almost unemployable due to ageism? Who's going to rent to you and how will you afford it? Are you going to be a squatter? Do you plan to wait until your parents die and live off the inheritance?

That's cool if you don't have answers to those questions when you're 22-25, but what about 35+, like most millennials now are?

"so maybe this all just shows how important affordable housing is and how it eventually starts to Trump all other issues."

Of course it does, and why anyone would think otherwise has baffled me my entire adult life.

(1) in any survival class, for me boyscouts, you learn that first priority in any survival setting is shelter.

(2) anyone living in the US in the last 60 years and has paid any attention to the homeless know how fast your life falls apart when you don't have a home. Countless stories of someone having a traumatic life event, and then being evicted with their entire life being tossed out on the curb by an uncaring landlord

(3) a shelter is safety, it is engrained in ourselves that we feel safer and more secure when we have a dedicated place that is permanent.

So of course shelter/affordable housing trumps almost everything else, it always has and always will. It is surprising how society has been, seemingly, brainwashed with the idea that housing has to be (a) an investment vehicle and (b) done for obscene profits.

These companies are so rare, why wouldn't the younger workers just go find a job with higher pay and less time off? It's not like they're being forced to work at a 4-Day Work Week company... They're kind of unicorns to find in the first place.

Who criticizes him?

I work 4 days a week and never received this criticism.

I did a 6 month stint with 4 day work days and I noticed the same thing. I think I was more productive when I had that added day of rest and yeah they paid me 1/5 less. I didn't mind the pay cut because I was much happier. It's pretty amazing what an extra day of rest does for you.

Leisure is expensive. This year the kids have all week off for Thanksgiving. We said we should go and do something. Then we priced out a bunch of things and everything is far too expensive, so we are staying home.

And offshore jobs (china, india) growing simultaneously.

Good.

"Growth at all costs" mindset is not sustainable or good for anyone but the upper echelons of society.

I'm not sure "growing in popularity" is exactly the right phrase for "coming to accept the inevitable consequences of living on a planet with finite resources," but it's good to hear it anyway.

I'm willing to bet people with a 4 day week need their health insurance way less. (on average)

I don't think this is a reasonable way to think about it. You are getting 20% more *per hour* but that isn't the same as a 20% pay bump. It doesn't help you afford a house, raise kids or buy luxuries. (Unless you use that extra 20% time to find a different job that pays similar).

Personally I would switch to a 4 day week with 20% less salary. I would probably even be more than 80% of my current productivity because I'm definitely less productive on many Fridays.

How long ago was this? & where?

My first job in 2012 was 30k/year, after that 25k/year in 2015. & these are CAD, not USD. I didn't feel pathetic, I felt lucky getting to stay inside during the winter instead of working 12/hr flooring

Guess it's harder when you've had the higher salary already. For me I'd skipped college, so was building a resume

Was it worth it? How'd they keep their commitment to no calls/meetings? I'd be worried about the employer reneging on that.

Mind me asking how many hours that is? Does it include meetings?

During spring of 2020 at the very beginning of COVID my (100K+ person) company furloughed all of us for about 12 days, but most of us had to take it as 2 days of unpaid time off per week, so we effectively had 3 day work weeks. I have to say that felt a little too short and it always felt like it was a scramble to get things done. 4 day weeks feel a lot more comfortable.

3 days? Why settle for so little? Ask for 2, he'll 1 day work week!

Give us choice. I’ll take a long weekend over a midweek holiday any time.

But I might want to vary it from time to time. So, choice.

If we move to a four-day week as standard I hope we do it in a flexible way, so that some people don't work Monday, some people don't work Tuesday, etc.

I acknowledge that could be difficult to manage in some industries (e.g. trying to get eight people together in a meeting), but it means that traffic would be lowered each working day, as well as people being more spread out when attending leisure activities (i.e.not everyone goes to the beach on a Saturday).

1) Friday or Monday are more likely to be days off anyway, so you’re asking (slightly) less by asking for one of those.

2) Lots of people really like having longer stretches off, as it opens more options for things you can do with the time off.

3) If kids are off school, even for a non-holiday (teacher in-service, say) it’s often a Friday, so that’s a nice day for parents to have off.

TL;DR there’s a pretty strong case for Friday and a somewhat less strong case for Monday. I expect employers and co-workers alike to prefer either of those over Wednesday.

This is a fun move to pull for the reasons you stated but also because it surprises those who didn’t consider it as an option when selecting a schedule. Downside- we need long breaks to truly relax and calm down. Not much resetting you can do in a day but with three there’s more opportunity.

An important part of this is to eliminate the idea that as a society we all need to have the same 2 weekend days off. (Which we don't anyway because a huge percentage of the population does work on weekends, just not most "professionals".)

Let my dentist's office be open 7 days a week, with some of them working M-Th and some working Thur-Sun and some working Sat-Tues etc. Maybe some of them mix it up and do M/T/Th/Fr or M/W/F/Su or whatever.

K-12 schools are the tough nut to crack in this scenario.

Don’t agree with this at all. The advantage of a three day weekend is that the extra day gives you time to tie things up, wind down, and actually be able to enjoy both days of the weekend instead of that only being true of Sunday (the tail end of which is fudged up by having to prepare for Monday).

It probably wouldn't be practical for small companies, but what I'd really love would be a rotating third day off that moved between Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I don't think it'd make sense to rotate through all days because having it on a Tuesday or Thursday would just be annoying to go back to work for one day before having another break day.

With a MWF rotation you'd get 4 on, 2 off, 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off, 4 off, repeat and having that four day weekend every three weeks would really open up weekend trips that require more travel.

I do this where I work (in higher ed). I work 4 tens and have Wednesday off. It's like having a lot of two-day weeks with alternating 1- and 2-day weekends. Also, if I need a Friday or Monday off I can change which day I take off for that week. What sold me on it was "never work more than two days in a row unless you choose to".

I see a lot of criticism of the 10-hour days, but in a mixed environment I like it. With the hours I chose I have a 1 1/2 hour work time in the morning where most everyone else isn't in yet that is very productive for me. I also have an extra half-hour after the time most people leave to do the same. My work is more project oriented, but I still have inconvenient meetings with small windows for work throughout the normal work day.

You shouldn't, though. Negotiate the same pay but 4-days a week instead of 5.

As workers, we shouldn't lower our expectations or standards for employers. It hurts us all.

A 4 day work week is not '4 days work for 80% of the money'. A 4 day work week today means working 4 days a week for the same money as a person working 5 days a week. Depending on the company that's either 10 hours a day for 4 days a week, or more commonly it's an 8 hour day for 4 days a week with an assumption (proven in many studies) than people work harder with less downtime for that 8 hours so consequently get the same amount of work done as their 10-hour-4-days and 5-day-week counterparts.

The title makes it sound like they'd sacrifice allot but when you look at the percentages it's mostly just I'd like to work 4-10s.

If they (or you, or anyone) want a 4 day work week, then why not pick a profession that allows it? Most healthcare related fields work in 12 hour shifts, so working 3-4 days a week is the normal standard.

Not every professional job is an office job 9-5.

No sweat, let me just go back to school and learn to be a healthcare professional.

What point does this argument hold besides "it's what we do now so we don't change it"? Same thing could be argued when five-day work weeks were first proposed.

I think this should be a common sense rule: If your statement starts with “why don’t they just” or some sort of variant: Think about it twice.

You’re suggesting that 92% of the young workforce concentrates on the few jobs with extended shifts. 92% of the next gen of workers will not be working a 9-5 in your scenario.

> why not pick a profession that allows it? > Most healthcare related fields work in 12 hour shifts

I don't know, but I guess working 12 hour shift has something to do with it. Around where I live healthcare workers are also often on strike because of low wage and poor working conditions.

Oil fields. Seven days on, seven days off. Per-diem alone is enough to buy all your food and a nice RV.