> You will still want an Uber after 5pm, or a shop or restaurant to be open on a public holiday.
No one says this change doesn't apply to people in those industries or in shift work. You have to remember that the idea is more to reduce work from 40 hours per week to something like 32 hours per week (30 in OP's case).
In this case, you can still have restaurants open late, it would just mean the schedule would be shorter for all staff.
> But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier office workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-customer facing. But it totally ignores the service industry which is a huge part of our society (and arguably even more so if we end up working less!).
The service industry could make up for the lack of coverage by hiring another person. Giving jobs to more people.
I do believe that the question of having a livable wage (supplemented or not by UBI) is a separate issue that should not impede giving people their time back.
I still don't buy that. In an office job you can find cost neutral ways to cut hours: a lot of people in this thread have said they would work harder in less time to achieve the same outcome, as a really simple example.
That's patently not an option in the service industry. You help people cut hours but now a restraunt, say, needs a percentage more staff (each of whom comes with a salary overhead) at a higher hourly wage.
This is before you consider the scale of it. About 85% of UK jobs are in the service sector. There is a massive labour shortage in key service areas anyway. At the same time, highly leveraged office workers cut their hours and have more leisure time, so service industry demands go up.
It's just not an easy pitch to make in my book. If I wanted to cut my hours I absolutely could come up with some automation and investment to help me do that, and my employer might agree to invest in that because I have high value and strong individual leverage.
That is just untrue for the vast majority of the service industry.
No one says this change doesn't apply to people in those industries or in shift work. You have to remember that the idea is more to reduce work from 40 hours per week to something like 32 hours per week (30 in OP's case).
In this case, you can still have restaurants open late, it would just mean the schedule would be shorter for all staff.
> But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier office workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-customer facing. But it totally ignores the service industry which is a huge part of our society (and arguably even more so if we end up working less!).
The service industry could make up for the lack of coverage by hiring another person. Giving jobs to more people.
I do believe that the question of having a livable wage (supplemented or not by UBI) is a separate issue that should not impede giving people their time back.