Should happen without AI
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2025
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The only reason they would consider a 3 day work week is to make all their employees "part time" and deny them benefits.
Just like trickle down economics!
As others have said, only reason they'd offer 3 day work weeks is to avoid health care, full time benefits.
You will work three days in one job, and then another three on another job in order to pay the rent. And then you'll need a side hustle and a Sunday job to afford food.
And both jobs will require you to be in the office.
Exactly. It'll be a 3-day workweek, and you'll only get paid for three days of work. They're not gonna give us the same wages for less work.
Fucking lol.
IF they get an 80% productivity boost and can choose to either:
A) Maintain staffing, maintain pay, only make workers work 3 days a week.
B) Fire 60% of staff, maintain 5 days a week, and freeze raises because the market is now awash with newly laid off people
What do YOU think they're gonna do?
Marx called this more then a century ago, any labor saving technology will always be used to put people in the unemployment line instead of lessening work because capitalist love a long unemployment line to keep the workers in line.
He thought that it would lead to the unemployed masses teaming up with the imiserated workers to overthrow capitalism, which hasn't happened...yet.
I don't think you or I or Marx need to over engineer the explanation in terms of "wanting unemployment lines to keep 'workers in line'"
It's sufficient to say there is an immediate profit motive to just fire the workers and pocket the surplus, I think.
Not well versed enough in social theory or empirical outcomes to really know... But it seems enough to me
It's sufficient to say there is an immediate profit motive to just fire the workers and pocket the surplus, I think.
That doesn't explain why they don't just do a three day work week and pay workers 1/2 of what they did before. Cost wise it would be the same and would make the same profit as firing half the workforce, but you'll almost never see companies reduce hours instead of head count.
They don't reduce hours because that means the person will probably get a second job. Now they're not the sole employer and the only thing keeping that person from poverty. This makes getting fired a smaller threat as the second job can hold you over for longer. It also gives the employees more bargaining power when negotiating for raises / benefits as they can threaten to quit and just live off the second job for a bit, they can also play both employers off one another to compete for the employees time. These all increase worker power which capitalists/employers don't like.
A long unemployment line has the opposite effect and decreases worker power. It makes firing a bigger threat as the employee knows it will be harder to get a job, so the employer can work them more and pay them less. It also reduces employee bargaining power as the threat of quitting isn't as real and the employer knows it.
This is why a Marxist approach is needed, economics just looks at the dollar and cents, but if you look only at that you can miss underlying power dynamics that also drive behavior.
Maybe that's why. I don't dispute the outcome, just I wonder about the underlying motivation.
Headcount, regardless of utilization, carries a cost. Payroll HR benefit administration badges laptops uniforms etc etc.
As well simply "cutting hours" causes people to quit to find more stable full time employment. If you actually want to keep an employee, it's a massive risk to do that.
Both cases, those are working against the employer even before you try and justify it as part of some grander scheme.
I'm completely open to the idea, but it strikes me as an Occam's Razor moment. Why introduce the concept of secret colluding between competing businesses when it can be sufficiently be explained by individual greed?
Or C) actually do 3-day workweek, and pay people 3/5 as much.
That's a bingo
Hahahahaha The only reason we have a 5 day workweek is the labor movement. Capitalists then love to saunter up later with their new tech saying they can shave a few more days off. Does it ever happen? Nope. You get new work and they pocket the savings.
yeah, that’s such fucking bullshit. Why the hell would they ever fucking do that when they can just hire one person and work them 10 times as hard for five days a week and leave the rest of us unemployed. It makes zero economic sense. AI is not here to solvethe world‘s problems. It’s here to solve the wage problems and it is well on its way.
The wage problems are that people aren’t paid enough. AI aims to solve the “my billions still aren’t enough” problem that these lunatics have.
That is exactly what I mean. The wage problem is a capitalist problem, and boy howdy will it be solved.
Productivity has more than doubled since the 5 day workweek was introduced ^1^. We could have that right now. At least a four day work week has been proven to be more productive in multiple studies.
So what can AI do that hasn't already been done?
^1^ ^Fought^ ^and^ ^died^ ^for^
I did post this before reading the article, the entire premise of the (CEOs quoted in the) article is "AI more productive therefore less work required" which only shows that the several CEOs mentioned including Bill fucking Gates are all deeply and inexcusably ignorant of labour or even economic history.
several CEOs mentioned including Bill fucking Gates are all deeply and inexcusably ignorant of labour or even economic history.
lol...
They are selling their shiti AI. People underestimating oligarchs has got to stop. They have dozens of SMEs on any given topic advising them.
When they talk it is for their own benefit. They are not stupid.
With a 7 day week for those fixing it's mistakes
So everyone needs two jobs plus paying out of pocket for what were full-time benefits?
Looks like his pants are on fire... weird.
CEOs only act in the interests of shareholders. Any claims they make about things benefiting workers are utter horseshit.
Does zoom work a 3 day workweek now? Surely he could help make that happen in a short matter of time. Put your money where your mouth is.
Nah, instead people who work will continue being stuck in a constant crunch time. There will only be more unemployed people and the owners and shareholders will continue to pocket the extra profit.
Ah yes, because these pricks certainly care about a sustainable wage and not just not wanting to pay another 16 hours or more per week.
Sounds like total crap, 3-day work week maybe in 100 years, the world will have moved to flying cars before that'll happen.
Jensen Huang, huh? The same guy in charge of Nvidia and their massive AI chip market? Mmmmkaaaayyy
I do feel like some facilities are using AI to calculate their OEE because holy shit that's some inflation Batman.
