Is our Working Week Sustainable?

For the last decade, 'flexibility' has been the stated goal of workplace reform in both public and private sectors, but the term has reversed its meaning since the 1970s. Whereas 1970s-style flexibility meant that employees could shape their working hours to fit in with their personal lives, 1990s-style flexibility means that employers can shape the lives of their employees to fit in with the demands of the workplace. Similar moves towards flexibility have taken place in most of the English-speaking countries. By contrast, in most European countries, the trend towards steady reductions in working hours has continued. Full-time employees in countries like Germany and the Netherlands work an average of 1400 to 1500 hours per year, compared with 2000 hours per year for full-time employees in the United States, a difference of more than 25 per cent. The recent growth of the English-speaking economies has been achieved at the expense of high levels of stress, burnout and alienation