Abstract
Slowly, but surely, weekly hours of work have fallen over the last hundred years and continue to do so. The six-day week disappeared in the 1950s. Between 1951 and 1978 average weekly working hours of a male full-time manual worker fell from 48 to 44. Now, about half the full-time manual work-force are employed under agreements that provide a basic week of less than 40 hours.
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Notes
R. Allen, The Effects of a Shorter Working Week, Treasury Working Paper, No. 14 (1980).
Research by the Policy Studies Institute for the Department of Employment, quoted by the Financial Times, 27 October 1980.
M. Ford, ‘How Europe’s unions are opting for shorter hours to save jobs’, Financial Times, 22 September, 1983.
D. Thomas, ‘Shorter working hours bring big benefits’, Financial Times, 30 August 1985.
J. Davies, ‘Changeover to flexible work practices’, in Financial Times West German Industry Supplement, 23 April 1985, p. 3.
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© 1987 Edwin Whiting
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Whiting, E. (1987). Shortening the working week. In: A Guide to Unemployment Reduction Measures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08621-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08621-4_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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Online ISBN: 978-1-349-08621-4
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