The problem with the supposed 8 hours of recreation is that it doesn't account at all for commuting times, house chores, cooking meals, exercising, etc. Even then you could maybe argue that you still more than enough free time left in the day, but there's another problem with that. Most people are either too physically or mentally tired after working 8 hours and doing all other obligations, you just end up with masses of NPCs who just get home, do absolutely nothing actually enjoyable, and then go to sleep to repeat the cycle.

Sadly, 40 hours a week is no longer relevant in this era. Overworking is one of the main causes of depression and stress. We cannot consider 2-4 hours of driving, commuting, preparing, eating, taking a bath, etc. as recreational.

The most prolific writer in America works roughly 5 hours a day. He works to a pre-determined page count every day. After 5 hours, the work begins to erode in quality. This is true of everything. We’re human beings, not machines. Science has already shown this is true. Cracking the whip isn’t going to extract more work without serious repercussions. Suicide? Depression? Physical maladies? Derision? It’s all there. Why don’t we learn? Because we let Capitalists decide for us. All we have to do is to take a stand.

Developer here... Before the pandemic I was forced into an overly loud office building where it's impossible to concentrate or get anything done. As a result many of my team where forced to work overtime during their evenings, in order to catch up with our schedule. When the pandemic struck we where all allowed to work remotely, productivity skyrocketed! Most of us felt healthier while often working 9 to 10 hours remotely, yet working 10 hours from home was less energy draining as from the office. Most of the team where a lot happier during this period. Getting actual work done during normal work hours was also a new concept for us, as most of the work was originally done during the evenings. We've now been forced back into the office during the past 4 months, most dev's are miserable as hell and productivity has plummeted to an absolute zero. My boss recently asked why we refused to work unpaid overtime during our evenings, just as before the pandemic. I responded with: "If we can't work remote during our workday, we can't work remote after our workday." He clearly didn't like my answer and stubbornly refuses to revert the work from home rules... Guess I'm forced to find another workplace where I'm payed to be a productive member of society, not for bottom in chair time...

I agree with an 8 hour cycle being wack. But throughout all of my office experiences, nobody is actually working for 8 hours. It’s more like 3 and they just fuck around for the other 5 or pretend like they working.

What’s bad is as someone with ironworking and frac hand experience , it is typically us in the most dangerous jobs being made to work anywhere from 12-18 hours in a day. People are tired, angry, and mistakes are made that could seriously put peoples lives at risk

I would work 0 hours if I could, I literally have no shame in being lazy. My time is too precious to be working all the time

Great video. We're a century late in advocating for 30 hour work weeks. Even within the medical field the efficiency drop-off after 8-10 hours of work is palpable, and as a result of various constraints we're pushed to 12, 14, 16 or even longer hour shifts. At least some skeleton of economic planning and proper state investment can sort all these issues out, whilst maintaining if not outright increasing output (if that's even important/desirable in the relevant field). Definitely a missed point on the left.

Even working for myself I set an 8 hour workday as well. If I have to work less than 8 on any given day I feel unaccomplished and make up the hours later. It’s too engrained in me at this point lol

In Southeast Asian countries we still have 12 work hours, even more depends on what sectors you’re in. I do think it’s kind of related to how we also spend same hours in school days, which is why when pandemic hits we collectively almost lost it.

I always had the same issue with that 8 hour work day slogan! 8 hours of recreation falls apart if you have kids or a home you actually contribute to. Hits women in the work force the hardest.

I'm a researcher, and I noticed already a long time ago that I can get about 4-6 really effective hours of work done per day. After that the quality just starts to drop and it's better to just continue the next day with a clear mind. Sometimes, when there's a lot to do I can keep up longer, but trying to do 8 hours every day just doesn't work. My head just can't take it.

My uncle works 3x12 hours shifts. Its amazing. He never works more than 2 days in a row, saves a lot of time on commute and getting ready for work. Also he can have extended weekend by working mon-wed on week 1 and wed-fri on week 2.

I think it depends on what you mean by work. The studies I've seen seem to indicate we can get about 3-4 hours of focused concentration in a day, so if that's the only type of work you have, work that much and be done. However there's a lot of low intensity work that still often needs to be done beyond that, like communicating with coworkers/customers, organizing around the office, going places...etc. I think that type of work is fine to fill up to maybe the 8 hours or more. But yeah I don't expect to do more than 3-4 hours of focused "real" work in a day.

This is the kind of story we need to tell more. I am deeply saddened that we don't celebrate May Day in the US. "Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up..."

I just found your channel today and at first I didn't expect much, but this is a great video. This channel is a hidden gem and I hope you grow larger! Now it's time to binge some of your other vids

While I agree with the point of this video I’m afraid many employers will use this idea as an excuse to pay their employees less

Amazing video, can't believe you're not more popular, the quality is astounding. Just wanted to point out that 06:25 1st of may is an official labour day, introduced by Polish workers party in 1950 but still based on the 1890 strike. Keep up your amazing work@

Binging your whole channel! Loving your vids so far, keep it up!!

Hi! I found your channel through your viral Johnny harris video. its amazing the production quality you achieve right out of the gate! The only thing i couldn't help but notice is the reverb or hollow sound after you speak! if you have one place you film, you should try create some (mobile) sound panels or other dampening fabric. it would be the icing on the cake or your otherwise near flawless videos! keep up the good work!

Yet here we are in Healthcare working 14 hour shifts. Inhumane.

If you live in Asia particularly in China, Japan, Korea, India, Philippines, Vietnam, etc. the minimum work hours is 12 to 16 hrs. Sometimes, with no overtime & night differential pay and employers would often ask you to work on weekends. It is brutal.

Honestly, even if it makes us _less_ productive, that doesn't matter. We work to live, not the other way around!

8 hour limit and 4 day work week would also assist with degrowth The idea that happiness comes from buying things rather than spending time with others is something that companies tell us and that we know we're sacrificing of our lives for these corporations that would fire us given the smallest reason

Sometimes its less about the productivity during the time and more about them being in control of your life.

As an upstart KZfaqr myself I feel the same guilty feeling when I don't work 8 hours but I find after 4-6 hours the quality of my creative work diminishes so significantly I often end up deleting and redoing it the next day. Now I've learned to quit when I reach that point where I can tell the work is garbage but since that point is always before the 8 hour mark I still feel bad and this video has made me feel much better about it, thank you.

This channel needs to blow up already. KZfaq needs to stop suppressing it, it’s so informative.

I think it would be great to work 8 hours a day 4 days a week, mon-thurs then tues-friday and repeat. That would be amazing. 4 day weekends every other week.

Awesome video and great point. Even more realising that I was really overworked at my last job. Every week I was made to do 12 hour shifts, even on Saturdays.

Great videos. Thanks. Your channel blowing up is much deserved 🙏

Hey man, I came here after your Johnny Harris video and am pleased to find another great one! I'm from Australia and I have another little tidbit for you if you happen to want it: - Australian Unions were started when we essentially went through the same thing as the bit you mentioned with Robert Owen, and to this day we have Labour Day in October (although it's different in different states) to "celebrate" it. And our slogan was way cooler: 8 hours work 8 hours play 8 hours sleep And 8 bob a day. You probably know already but a bob was a shilling. 8 shillings a day was a lot more than people had been being paid.

I'm a paramedic I work 12hrs four to five days a week that's 48 to 60hrs per week. Also days and nights. It's sometimes hard to concentrate.

I just got recommended this today, and I'm shocked this doesn't have more attention. It's relatively short, it's succinct, and the editing and effort put into it is phenomenal.

Another great video!! Really educational 🙌

The 8 hour work day is complete garbage. For example, I can get my job done at work in 5 hours, but I can’t leave even though I’m done, I’m expected to stay even though I’m done. Makes no sense just to waste my time.

Great research! Thanks for this.

Thanks for this video! It is very interesting and informative!

Subscribed! You're doing great!

this video has phenomenal production value, im very impressed and only commenting bc of how little views it has. hopefully this helps.

great video great production great edit keep it up

I'm a sales guy. I work 6 12 hour shifts a week. and it's hell.

Shorter work days make sense for some industries but not all. I don't know how the social norms would shift if suddenly the apple jobs are 30 work weeks but construction work or truck driving or service jobs are still 8 hour shifts. Places like Wal Marts need those 8 hour shifts because of their hours as a retail store, sure they could hire more at 6 hours but what would the wages look like for 6 hours a days at wal mart vs 8? What would the impact be to road construction or supply chains if these jobs worked shorter hours? Also going into the future what would the pay scales start to look like between jobs that go to a shorter work week vs those that still require the 40-50 hours a week? I think a lot of people talking about shorter are in fields that may work and are projecting their realities on to others where that shorter work week won't really work.

Great video! Really plays well into the concept of pseudo work in the modern workplace - I highly recommend the book "Pseudowork - How we ended up being busy doing nothing" by Dennis Normark and Anders Fogh Jensen. A totally eye-opening read!

Mentioning the 1890 protests without at least a brief mention of the 1886 Haymarket massacre is total negligence on your part. People died and were executed to reduce worker hours, and it's important not to erase the people that gave us this.

U need a better ending, but this video is just on point with timing and visuals. P.S. You better thanks Johnny for his flaws, ‘cause after your criticizing him in videoessay, you’ve got a plenty subs. And it’s great🎉

this made me wonder why the netherlands is one of the only countries in the world that doesnt have labour day. I realised this earlier but i never knew how much of an outlier we were. so I googled it and apparently it has to do with the dutch way of ''poldering''. we never had as much conflict. And princesses day, (which would become queens and now kingsday) was created to celebrate the resolved tensions of the labour movement. and it was at conveniently at the end of may right before labour day. So we have kingsday instead of labour day? Would you agree with this analysis, my new favorite youtube historian?

Eight hours of "work" usually only results in four hours of productivity... meetings devour roughly half of my schedule. So, if I want to get five hours of productive work done, I have to put in a ten to twelve hour shift. ugh...

I just stumbled across your channel yesterday after the johnny harris video, and I believe I've found a hidden gem.

In Europe, they try to cut down on amount and duration of work, keep the pay the same... In US they try and cut down the pay and benefits as well... USA! USA! USA!

Great vid bro!

In France, the legal definition of a full-time work week is 35 hours or 7 hours a day.

John Maynard Keynes was talking about a 15-hour work week for grandchildren back in the 1930s. How he got 15 hours I don't know. But I think we could have had a 3-day 24-hour workweek by the 90s. But instead we created planned obsolescence where we must produce junk to be thrown away and replaced. That increases GDP where economists ignore the depreciation of of all of the durable consumer trash.

I would kill to only have to work 8 hours a day. That would feel like a part time gig.

Funny that I stumbled upon this video. Two years ago I reduced my hours from 8 to 5. Now I get paid 5/8 (duh) but I still do the same amount of work. And that is why getting paid by the hour is stupid.

If you work by the hour for salary then you want to maximize the working day in-line with the working contractual hours. I often feel after 6 hours or so that my brain is totally up and yet I have to sit for another two hours to make up my work day. If you want to have a successful career then you are free to work your hours and days but do not complain about burn out or stress then.

I like your channel i think it will be very popular soon. Its only 2k subs? I bet you will explode soon enough

These topics are amaaaaazing!!!

The last few months, I have worked actual 8hours, and it usually takes me 12 hours to do that. 7am-7pm. It has led to my promotion, but yeah wife, gets mad. After promotion though she does not know whether to get mad or not lol.

Its actually gotten worse since women entered the workplace on a large scale. It used to be the case that 40 hours of work could maintain a household i.e. man works full time and wife takes care of chores/kids all on one salary. Now we need 80 hours of labor to maintain a household since employers have nearly twice the labor pool which means wages are cut in half. So both parents have to work full time and still somehow raise a child when daycare/babysitters are now making almost as much as a normal full time job pays!

Working from home is great as a Software Engineer. I still get 8 hours in but do it in spurts. If I have something else to do besides work I'll go do it... come back maybe finish it later in the evening. Depending on project I have going on there have been some weeks I probably only worked technically 20 hours... Other times if our team is up against a deadline I'll work 60 in a week. My boss doesn't care as long as I get all my stuff done. My actual office in Pittsburgh, PA is about an hour commute. I might go into office once a week if I feel like it. I normally do that because there are a couple great restaurants for lunch there that I don't have around my house :)

I think you're just looking at an office worker perspective. That's just a small portion. Imagine McDonalds was only working for a few hours a day, post office a few hours, bank a few hours. When you're free, nearly nothing will be open. Your office worker will work 4 hours and then once work is done, will not be able to refill petrol as station is only open a few hours. Restaurants will be closed by the time you want to go there, like do you want this to expand to all workers? All you will be able to do is stay home or talk with friends and family, go to park, or other places which don't require any staff. You will have to be careful managing your car fuel if you want to go somewhere like beach or bushwalking. I can't ever see how that is going to work, unless everyone just does short 4 hour shifts and in a 24 hour day say at McDonalds, you would need 6 different staff changes throughout the day. And I wonder if staff are willing to get showered/dressed in uniform, travel to work and back all for a 4 hour shift. Also, need to think about the pay. If we're working less, we all will be making less money too. I don't see bills, utilities, mortgages, insurance, etc. going down in price. You will still need to eat the same amount of food, so really we're all going to be poorer too.

In the company I worked at most people worked 6 hours and only few of us decided to work 8 but only bcs the 6 hour schedule was less then 40 hours a week and it is not considered a full time job in my country. With that you can't request credit from the bank and you are missing days for your future retirement. If the system would consider it a full time I am sure no one would want to work 8 hours a day, especially when you start a family and have kids you want to raise properly.

Great video. Hope we move toward four days a work week.

Actually I'm dreaming of 8-hours job. LOL. It's a rarity working straight 8 hours. We in our country mostly work overtime, unpaid.

Nice one, JB!

6:24 - Ahhh, 'Murica being Murica. That said, as a Canadian, I like the 'First Monday in September" Labour Day better than a random day in May. It becomes the last celebration of summer, the signal that school is starting - it's basically a flagship day to change how we are thinking about the calendar.

Productivity in America hasn't increased much, to my surprise, so perhaps European countries and Japan should think about 6 hour work weeks before the US does. Then again, companies make so much in the US that it might not even matter, and we could just do the 6 hour work week anyway

Currently I’m not salaried, but I can also get almost all of my work done before lunch, sometimes all of it an hour before lunch. As a result, I’ve arguably become less efficient, so the 8 hour work day definitely doesn’t guarantee efficiency. It just means that people like me have to find ways of stretching our jobs across that 8 hours so we aren’t left twiddling our thumbs. The work gets done, but it could get done faster if we were allowed to leave earlier or decide our own fault schedules. Obviously this would require a lot of discussion on the logistics of such changes, but it would, in my opinion, be well worth the effort.

Everyone you meet who says they work 8 hours everyday from 9-5 is not including the snack/restroom/coffee time, some aren't event including the lunch time. So yeah don't worry, they're actually working 5hrs.

Read David Graeber's book - "BS jobs". We are probably already doing a lot of work just for the sake of it. Also he published some other essays where he gives some pretty good argument that we could probably automate a lot more than we actually do.

I noticed that Canada was not included.. here we changed from 60 hour week to 40 hour week in the 1960s.

I think for most desk-jobs, this would be true. For rapidly growing industries like Welding and manufacturing, this could be tough to push onto employers. Because the demand is so high with so little supply. Same thing happens with the US military. They have rates / MOSs that're Under / Over-manned. The undermanned rates tend to have the least accolades, and the most unappealing lifestyle. (Long hours, isolation, stress.) The point is, less hours would be nice. But depending on what stage of growth the industry is in, it just might not be possible for everyone to adopt just yet

I wish you could start working at 13-14 nowadays too and with proper self-education and private courses you could be an intern engineer by the age of 14 and a junior or middle by the age of 16-18 and a highly skilled and knowledgeable expert by the age of 20-22

I worked 6 pm to 6 am for 18 years 4 on 3 off.

This is same for my schoolwork. Ever since ive starting doing school online, my days have been half as long and i've been learning just as much. Also wastes less time doing useless busywork.

Funny how in China May 1st is used to celebrate good working ethics. When I was young the school always taught us that, and we made posters about it.

I wake up between 6:00 and 7:00, eat breakfast, cycle to the train station, take the buss, work, eat luck, continue to work, take the buss back, cycle back home, do stuff, eat dinner, do stuff, go to sleep ca 22:00 (I work ca 7.5 hours, with 30 minutes of lunch in the middle)

I know right, only eight hours of work, I get so bored with so many unproductive hours.

My company allows work between 6am and 10pm, you decide how to split your 8 hours, works quite well, often i work 8 hours still purely because it isn't as taxing sometimes.

I would have mentioned England and Wales as it was integral during the industrial Revolution in fact the city where I live Swansea was known as coppertropolis because it produced 80% of the worlds copper it was also one of the greatest steel and coal producing areas on earth when referring to what you called England call it the UK or Britain and call it the British government

Fantastic video production! Definitely subscribed and looking forward to what you'll be making! One point though - the statistic that over half of people are looking to quit their jobs has more to do with the fact that it's a way to increase income. Salaries for new hires are usually higher than bonuses for existing employees, so people essentially end up shifting each others' jobs. Employee satisfaction is definitely an important factor - hoping to get better working conditions - but since most companies share similar work schedules and environments, you rarely get much in return. Now that I think about it, it may be that as soon as a couple of them update their work schedules, people will flock to them quicker than ever before. The influx might then motivate the other companies and change could be made faster than, say, 30-40 years ago.

After the Black Death the Dutch took over the British countryside with their sheep. The British weather and abundance of Fuller's Earth made for the best wool. The Dutch had control of all manufacture. That British wool was what any self respecting army in Europe bought for their troops, it was the best stuff. However, people in Britain were not happy with the Dutch doing all of the value add. They wanted a piece of the money making action. Hence the development of woollen mills in the UK and the factories. Coupled with this was the need to protect the trade. Hence the Royal Navy. You can see where this is going but that was the genesis, the wool trade. Before the big mills there was cottage industry. An example is the Cotswolds in the West Country of England where towns have pubs named after wool things, e.g. 'The Woolpack', and wool things in their flags, e.g. Stroud. The merchant economy and London became a thing. Industrial capitalism got started. In the House of Lords the Speaker on the Chair is actually sat on a wool sack. There is this block of wool surrounded by gold trimmed walls at the centre of Parliament. Wool was where it all started. A lot of this industry was Quaker. As well as Bible oriented reasons for abolition, they also operated in a 'free market' that wasn't exactly fair when you had slavery involved. Nonetheless, the seeds of abolition were sown in wool. Why did we have the eight hour day? Well if it goes to Ford and, before that, the industrial revolution, then why did this industrial revolution happen in England? Because of wool. Wool made it possible to have a merchant capitalist society with banking and all that tech innovation. Why did the wool happen? The Black Death - or some other plague - which denuded the British countryside making it free for the Dutch to take over with their sheep. There were no peasants with their little strips of land in the way. Before that 1066 had also made conditions for capitalism ripe, but that is another episode. I have spelled out WOOL in big letters here. But what you have to understand is that for a long, long time, all we had were sheep. It took a lot of time to domesticate other animals and sheep were what clothed and fed man from way before the Bronze Age. As soon as sheep came along (from the Fertile Crescent) they spread everywhere. Hence it was natural for the nearby Dutch to reconquer plague depleted Britain with their sheep. Mesopotamia could have had first mover advantage but, ultimately, Britain, with its temperate climate resulted in the best wool for war.

Great content! Thanks for sharing the evolution of working hours with us, Jochem! I'm curious how the evolution will continue the next decades.

This only applies to office work. We from the automation have to work more than 200 hours a month so factories have machines that can produce - so world can work in offices.

Hollywood needs to make the film "knights of labor" ⚔️⚒️🛠️

Glad to see someone talk about working hours who also properly credits unions, socialism and labour strikes for the shorter work days :)

Many of my colleagues and myself are working between 30 and 35 hours. It may not seem like much, but an hour a day more is a huge gain.

3:12 Migrate? Or move in desperation because their means of self sufficiency have been enclosed from them?

I'm surprised by your low view & subscriber count. You belong in the big leagues!

Weird referring only to 'England' when talking about Robert Owen when he was a Welshman who set up his mill in Scotland.

10x4 >> 8x5. A lot of places are catching on to this and I’m hoping it becomes more popular.

nice content 👍

Love and support from INDIA ♥️🇮🇳

Yo this is sooooo good! as a remote worker who, while maybe still near my desk for 8 hours at home, I mostly work for maybe....half of that? the rest I'm relaxing, doing other things. Genuinely my productivity is still fine, I get my work done, and sometimes I do put in a decent 6-8 hours of actual work, but it's when I wan't to. I think I would be even more productive if my expectation was 6 or 4 hours, and I didn't bother to use that time sitting at my desk, but felt free to go on a run or workout, or do chores for an hour not worrying that I might need to hop on the computer at any second. I think people are more productive when they feel in control of their labor, rather than forced to preform it in a strict time slot

Americans: what's a train

Most industries here where I live 9 and 10 is the standard. I'm a CNC machinist and my brother is a sheet metal worker. His trade is basically unlimited overtime most of his colleagues are doing 12 hour days and working Saturday as well. 8 hours is a luxury to my bro lmao. My trade is less over time heavy but it's there if anyone wants it.

My job's got me out working 10 hours a day, six days a week (work for three days, get a day off, work for three days, 7-5.) Thing is, I only work for 3-6 months of the year, and get the rest off. Plus the time I do spend at work isn't spent in an office. It's spent in the remote wilderness of Canada. I guess the old proverb of "choose a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life" is true, because I can't see myself doing anything else. I often find myself spending the 9-6 months of the year I have off anticipating the next season of work.

Im so not used to seeing dutch streets on a channel that isn’t Not Just Bikes haha

I was applying once for a job with customer. But I was told they are changing their hours. Use to be 8 h, not is 12h two working days and one free in between. This allows them to be open for more hours, thus making more money for the business. It really depends on the job and how exhausted you gonna be at the end of the day.

Hey! Zimbabwean here. We observe May day and it's a public holiday over here. Otherwise great video.