Put in work!

Carlos Slim, who according to Forbes is the worlds second wealthiest man, recently called for a complete overhaul of the way we work as a society. He says a “radical change” is needed; that that we should move toward a three day work week thus allowing more time for entertainment and activities that would encourage quality of life.

He goes on to elaborate that this process would push back the age at which people on average retire to 70, 9 years more then the current U.S. median.  To make this possible longer work days of 11 or so hours would become necessary, he claims this trade off would benefit employees and companies alike.

The Finanical Times quotes him saying:

“Having four days [off] would be very important to generate new entertainment activities and other ways of being occupied,”

The concept is obviously interesting, and not necessarily  new, with Google CEO Larry Page also championing the idea for a shorter work week recently, however it comes with many differing opinions.  Some feel the move could potentially hurt the worker, whereas others see how the move could potentially help the unemployment rate.  An unemployment rate that although is improving remains high, especially with young people the rate of which is in the double digits.  More tragically discouraging is the rate at which young minorities fare (28.2 percent for african-americans, and 18.1 percent for latinos).

The idea that mandating jobs to have longer hours would some how negate the need for additional days might seemsalmost naive  to some in light of recent studies showing that the 40 hour work week is a thing of the past, with many U.S. citizens averaging beyond that regularly.

Regardless the conversation surroudning this issue is one that definitely seems positive, well keep you updated on any developments as they come.

Spencer would use those extra hours to come up with clever signatures, follow him on twitter- @sjeezs