Do You Wish the 40-Hour Work Week Was Still the Norm?

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July 19, 2012
By Alexis Grant
11 Comments

We enjoyed this infographic from Online MBA called Bring Back the 40-Hour Work Week.

But it made us wonder: Does GenY even WANT the 40-hour week back?

Or do we enjoy throwing ourselves into our startups, traditional jobs and adding a side hustle to our work load?

What do YOU think?

We’d love to hear from you in the comments: Are you in favor of bringing back the 40-hour work week?

Source: OnlineMBA.com

Brazen Life is a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. Hosted by Brazen Careerist, we offer edgy and fun ideas for navigating the changing world of work. Be Brazen!

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Category: Lifestyle Design

Tags: long hours, work week

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=652438297 Jon DiPietro

Not sure where OnlineMBA got these numbers (all of those sources appear to come from secondary media sources) but they are extremely inaccurate and misleading. According to the US government, the average work week has dropped steadily since 1965 and is around 33 hours right now. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8Tw
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607006004 Alexis Grant
  
  Thanks for chiming in on this, Jon! Might be fodder for a follow-up piece…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=655455571 Lisa Brown
  
  Wait..you are advocating that the government got it right? ; )
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=652438297 Jon DiPietro
  
  No, government has nothing to do with it. It’s due to huge increases in business productivity that allow companies to hire more part timers and fewer full timers. Plus, in an economy where the underemployment rate is over 20% and the labor participation rate is at 40 year lows it seems absurd to me to be whining about working too hard.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607006004 Alexis Grant
  
  @Jon — Interested to see whether others agree with you
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=236819259669864 OnlineMBA.com
  
  Jon,
  Thanks for checking out our infographic. When looking for statistics for this particular infographic we used the BLS and Bureau of Economic Analysis for the working number of hours http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/. I think we were looking at two different data sets, as our research accounts for the entire U.S. workforce.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1540852853 Justin Tew
  
  @ Jon DiPietro. Thank you for your insight. I cannot comment on where MBAOnline pulled their data but given the context of the article, I’m sure they are talking about full-time employees. The data provided by BLS in that particular graph represents an average of all full-time and part-time employees. The information provided here: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat19.pdf shows an average of 42.3 hours for employees who normally work full-time in non-agricultural industries.
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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=742355140 JoAnne Jojo Fernández

This is an interesting read. Even the link that Jon DiPietro shared. Personally, I will be happy with a regular (underline) 9-5 or 8-4 w/occ OT.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=9502885 Dominique Aubry

Everyone should read.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1476681867 Fred Friedman

I agree with this article. 35 hours per week is more than enough. An outside of work life counts just as much as work.

Do You Wish the 40-Hour Work Week Was Still the Norm?

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