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suggested by a range of academics, think tanks complete the work quicker, cheaper and to a
and employers. better standard than we ever could.
For example, the Exeter-based travel company This is not a change which will take place
STC Expeditions recently completed a 12 week overnight, but by the 2050s, across an enormous
trial of the 4 day workweek, while during the range of industries and workplaces, highly skilled
2019 UK General Election, the Labour Party had custom-made robots will be doing the jobs
an official policy to make the 4 day workweek the humans used to do.
UK’s standard schedule, before 2030.
This is not a new idea, nor is it a new
The logic behind working 4 days a week instead phenomenon. Consider the industrial revolution,
of 5, is that several studies have shown peoples’ when vast numbers of textile workers found
productivity tends to decline after about 32 themselves surplus to requirements due to the
hours work per week, meaning that the other 8 invention of machines which could do their jobs
hours of the 40 hour workweek could be given without requesting break periods, days off or
back to the employee with little, if any, loss of overtime pay.
productivity. In fact, a 2019 study by Microsoft
Japan found that employee productivity In more modern times, think of self-checkout
actually increased by a staggering 40% when machines in the supermarket, where a dozen
they trialled a 4 day workweek for the duration or more self-checkouts can be available for
of the summer. customers to use, with only one or two store
assistants being present to supervise.
Whether a 4 day workweek is sustainable in
the long-term, not just over a limited period of The process of specially made robots replacing
time, and to what extent Thursday afternoons people in their job roles is called automation, and
become the new Friday afternoons with regards you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it in
to productivity, are issues which will need to be future, because right now in a number of very
investigated over the coming years, and by the large and very important industries, robots are
2050s, we will likely have our answer. being developed which, by the 2050s, will have
taken the jobs of hundreds of millions of people.
THE ROBOTS ARE COMING FOR US ALL For example, in the USA one of the largest
And there’s no escape! Like it or not, automation sources of employment for non-college educated
and technological advances mean that sooner men is vehicle driving; either as a truck driver,
or later, our jobs will be done by robots who can taxi driver, Uber driver, courier, or something
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