The case for a 4-day work week | Juliet Schor

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

The traditional approach to work needs a redesign, says economist Juliet Schor. She's leading four-day work week trials in countries like the US and Ireland, and the results so far have been overwhelmingly positive: from increased employer and customer satisfaction to revenue growth and lower turnover. Making the case for a four-day, 32-hour work week (with five days of pay), Schor explains how this model for the future of work could address major challenges like burnout and the climate crisis -- and shares how companies and governments could work together to make it a reality.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Elise Hugh, you're listening to Ted Talk's Daily.
0:07.7	Economist Juliet Shaw wants us to work shorter weeks.
0:11.2	Sounds compelling already, right?
0:13.1	In her Ted 2022 talk, she lays out the case for a four-day work week with five days of
0:18.5	pay.
0:19.5	Stick around after the talk, where she adds context to this in a one-on-one chat with me.
0:27.2	The poor for Ted Talk's Daily comes from Airbnb.
0:31.2	When you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me, wondering, could my place be an
0:35.8	Airbnb and if it could, what could it earn?
0:39.6	I think about this all the time.
0:41.3	Sub, whose extra room in London was storing furniture until his mom had the idea to start
0:46.1	Airbnbing it, now that extra room helps pay the mortgage.
0:51.6	And what your place could be earning at Airbnb.co.uk slash host.
0:59.8	I've been studying work since the 1980s and I've never seen anything like what's happening
1:06.6	today.
1:08.6	Pandemic-fueled anxiety is surging around the world.
1:12.4	In the US, more than half of all employees report feeling stressed a lot of the day.
1:18.5	Rob quits are at record levels running at four million a month.
1:23.0	People are burning out.
1:26.4	In response, a growing number of companies are offering a four-day, 32-hour week, but
1:33.8	with five days of pay.
1:35.6	Now, it's not a new idea, but the pandemic has turbocharged it.
	...

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