Introduction
Many European countries are facing a rising shortage of skilled workers due to a dwindling population. Therefore goes the question: do we have to work more and longer? Despite there is still a relatively high number of unemployment in Greece, the share of non-working population will decrease in the long run due to demographic changes and shortages of skilled manpower are extending, like recently in the tourism industry (SZ 2022). Therefore, discussions on good ways of organizing working hours and how they can contribute to sustain workforce potentials are foreseeable in Greece, too.
Prolonging working hours – a good idea?
Greece is taking a crucial role in that. Because nowhere else within Europe people are working as much as here. The weekly average is 48.2 hours, while the european average is 40.5 hours (statista 2024). But long working hours are highly problematic due to many reasons:
First of all, long working times – as well weekly as over the lifecourse – are both physically and mentally burdening. Eventually leading to a rising disease-related drop-out, this causes extra work for colleagues who must compensate absence of personnel (Wirtz et al. 2009). Moreover, long working hours increase fault-liability, risks for accidents, and exhaustion (Arlinghaus 2021). In addition to that, the more hours people are working until pension-leave, work-related strains and burdens are cumulating – regardless the age-related decrease of physical and mental resilience. Due to that, higher sickness leave rates are emerging in the long run, which is not only supercharging the lack of skilled manpower, but is also causing higher public healthcare costs.
Second, long working hours conflict with individual needs of time autonomy. Personally usable time slots regarding regeneration, social relationships, or hobbies are a highly valued good for many people. Besides that, long working hours undermine the compatibility of family and job (Büning/Eppers 2018). They are an obstacle for the realization of the wish to have children and for the practice of care at home. Especially parents are wishing for and are in need of shorter working hours in favor of greater equality within partnerships regarding the participation in employment (Lott 2023). Moreover, doing care work is already unevenly distributed at the cost of women and mothers. Long working hours during the day and the work week are further opposing the equal distribution of care demands because they restrain (the distribution of) available time slots among partners, parents and within families.
Third, longer working hours are colliding with needs of and demands for further training. Occupational and vocational qualification are crucial elements to maintain employability and to condition employees to the requirements of future work. That is not only an individual, but also an economic issue. Long working hours are diminishing workers’ motivations for advanced training. Same is evident for practicing political and civil volunteering: they have to stand back behind workplace demands or appear as an additional challenge within the organization of the family-work-relation. Therefore longer working hours are complicating democratic integration and social participation.
Furthermore the fatal effects of longer working times are showing not just for employees and firms but also for the system of social insurance, that is important in Greece: (over-)long working hours are complicating access to employment, from which social insurance contributions are made. In addition to that, long working hours are a limiting factor for the activation of the employment potential within the population. And finally they are provoking higher levels of absence among employees, i.e. due to physical and mental exhaustion or family-work-conflicts. All in all, this is leading to a decline of social insurance contributions.
Shorter working hours as key to more family-work-compatibility and age-appropriate working time arrangements
Long working hours are linked to many problems. Not least, long working times are not equivalent to a higher firm-specific or general economic productivity. That is shown by evidence from former experiences with shorter working hours in Germany, like the 35-h-work-week, that is already running long-term within the metal- and electrical industry sector (Seifert 2023). In addition to that, current pilots of the 4-day-work-week suggest no linkage between shorter working times and declining productivity (Lewis et al. 2023).
More than that, shorter working hours seem to be appropriate supporting health, employability, training, and gender-equality as a base of maintaining a skilled workforce and good working conditions.
Shorter working times indeed do need an adapted organization of work in general, which contains additional personnel and mandatory rules of substitution in favor of avoiding work intensification. But going along with this, working hours are often used more efficiently, i.e. due to a reduction of time killers like unnecessary meetings. Beyond that shorter working hours are linked to a higher motivation and better health among employees as well as to a decline of job-quittings, which eventually leads to at least stable or even higher productivity (Lewis et al. 2023). And going even further beyond, the ecological footprint can benefit, too: there is evidence showing that shorter working hours can contribute to a decrease of climate-damaging emissions, i.e. due to a reduction of work-related commuting (Mompelat/Minio-Paluello 2021).
Shorter working times also include higher chances for an autonomous usage of free time slots, which is desired by employees (Wanger/Weber 2023; Lott/Windscheid 2023). By that so called “rebound-effects” could be avoided, which arise from long working hours during the work day and the work week (Buhl/Acosta 2016). They are emerging if free time slots have to be used resource-intensively, i.e. due to their heteronomy or shortness. That does not contribute to regeneration but is diminishing individual recovery. Desirable effects occur when time is used autonomously and by individual purpose so it can relate to recovery or time for family and relationships in a better way.
Such working time arrangements are not just meeting actual employees’ needs, but can raise attractivity of employment especially for women, parents, and older population. This, eventually, can lead to a higher social and work-related participation within those groups. Due to demographic changes, the rising share of households containing more than one breadwinner, and fathers’ higher claims regarding caring for family, both men and women are increasingly facing challenges of arranging work and family-related duties, like caring for children or home health care. Working time arrangements, which are eligible for workers’ codetermination regarding positions and durability of daily and weekly working times, are helpful supporting family-suitable work (Lott/Klenner 2018).
And moreover, shorter working hours contribute to a workplace design, that is age-appropriate, which means in fact securing the possibility of getting older within firms. In combination with occupational health management as well as firm-specific reintegration programs addressing sickened employees, shorter working hours can help forming attractive working conditions, which are adequate keeping skilled workers and avoiding brain drain (Voss et al. 2023).
Conclusion
Shorter working times can contribute to economic, social, as well as to ecological targets. They can help maintaining a skilled workforce, keeping employees healthy, and ensuring time slots for learning and training. Due to a broader lack of skilled workers in Germany the 4-Day-Work-Week is already tested. Even there is currently no urgency in Greece yet regarding the employment situation: when it comes to the sustainability of the workforce, shorter working hours will play a greater role in future debates here as well.
References
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