Here's a quick way to make a big step towards catching up with wages in Australia

[marsden_online]

Kill the Cult of overwork.

Go to a 32 hour working week but keep gross/net annual wages the same.

Expect productivity not to decrease significantly, in fact it might even increase.

(see also the rules of productivity presentation)

Bonus - as more people get hired to cover the hours that everyone else is no longer working in our 24hour world unemployment will take a dive as well (and national productivity will increase).

Comments

[cthulhu-dream.livejournal.com]

Not for PhD students!

Har har har...

[marsden-online.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't be doing more than 35 hours/week...

[silvershamrock.livejournal.com]

I like it. The biggest problem is convincing employers to keep paying people the same rate for less hours: in terms of wages, you'd essentially be forcing them to raise the hourly rate to compensate.