Six-day work week in Canada: Would Greek plan work here?

Greece launched a six-day work week for some in a bid to beat what has been known as an financial “ticking time bomb:” the mix of a scarcity of expert employees and a shrinking inhabitants.

As some Canadian corporations discover providing employees a four-day work week, specialists are watching Greece’s transfer intently and counsel it might work right here.

“Probably, it is a good suggestion,” mentioned Mark Colgate, an affiliate dean with the College of Victoria’s Gustavson Faculty of Enterprise.

The Greek authorities’s new laws partially stems from the 2009 debt disaster, which led to tons of of 1000’s of individuals leaving the nation. However Canada is dealing with most of the similar points, based on Colgate.

“Each nation is battling a productiveness subject. I believe Greece and Canada are proper on the high when it comes to two international locations confronted with that subject probably the most. The way you reply to that could be a essential subject. Greece has determined that is how they’ll do it,” he mentioned.

How does it work?

The brand new laws now in impact offers employees the choice of tacking on a sixth day to their work week, or working a further two hours per day. It solely applies to workers who work at personal companies that function 24 hours per day.

Greeks who decide in will probably be paid 40 per cent greater than their normal wage for the additional hours labored.

Colgate says the largest potential downside is employee exploitation, if the non-obligatory additional hours change into extra of an expectation.

“If the employee doesn’t need to work the 48 hours, the employer then says ‘you need to or in any other case I will not rent you, I am going to rent somebody who’s prepared.'”

May it come to Canada?

It is a system already in place at some companies, however might this scheduling possibility be widespread in Canada? The brief reply from Colgate is just not anytime quickly.

“However we’re going to should provide you with inventive options, and that is Greece’s inventive resolution. Although some individuals are pushing again, in the event that they don’t do that, they’re going to change into much less and fewer aggressive as a nation and that’s precisely the difficulty we’re confronted with in Canada proper now too.”

Financial institution of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem lately echoed Colgate’s concern.

“Our Achilles heel is productiveness. We’ve been excellent at rising our financial system by including employees. We’ve been a lot much less profitable at growing output per employee,” Macklem mentioned final month.

“Our message is: if you would like extra non-inflationary progress, we’ll want a concerted dialogue between companies, governments and teachers, civil society on how are we going to get productiveness progress up in Canada.”