Shortening the working year

Abstract

Shortening the working week has an immediate effect and provokes considerable controversy about costs, wages and salaries, productivity and employment. Shortening the working year by longer holidays has met much less resistance from employers, and trade unions have had little difficulty in negotiating extended holidays. Yet the objectives of each are very much the same and overall there is little difference economically in cutting the number of hours worked each day from cutting the number of days worked each year.