Mexico's Richest Man Wants a Three-Day Work Week Patricia Laya - Bloomberg Businessweek
go to original August 4, 2016

The following is a condensed and edited interview with Carlos Slim, chairman emeritus, América Móvil.

Can you tell us about your plan for shorter workweeks?
Shorter workweeks are a solution to civilization shifts. Historically, the more technology advances and the more progress there is, people work less. What’s happening now is that people live longer, in better health, and without the need for physical effort. This civilization demands more knowledge, more experience, less physical exertion. Productivity has increased exponentially - despite the denial of some economists. And we see that’s why unemployment is a big problem in a lot of countries, but more specifically Europe. It’s important that people don’t retire at 50, 60, or 65 years old. I think people should retire later, because they’ll have more knowledge and experience. And I think they should work three days a week, so that it creates space for others.

This way, there will be less need for transportation. Nations wouldn’t have to face early retirements that are financially destabilizing. The quality of life and having four days a week free would encourage a lot of economic activities - more tourism, entertainment, sports, culture, and education. People can take advantage of those extra days to keep learning.

Would people earn less this way?
No, I think the companies that can take this on are those in which productivity has led to excess personnel. It’s a great change to exchange fewer days of work for more years until retirement. In fact, we started this in Telmex [América Móvil’s fixed-line unit] a couple of years ago. We’re offering people that have a lot of knowledge to stay longer and work fewer days.

And what’s been the response?
About 40 percent of those offered take it.

Are there industries where a change like this would be more easily adapted?
In those industries where there is too much personnel, such as government agencies. Instead of cutting personnel, you can enter a scheme like this, where you can have more people, maybe pay more salaries, but you’re avoiding having to pay when workers retire early. If I had been a regular worker in Telmex, I would have been retired for 22 years.

The exchange there is the shorter retirement, then?
If you look at it, it’s been slow, but with time people have been working less. Before they worked 72 hours, six days a week. Then 60 hours. The big success was the 48-hour workweek. Then the English week, where you worked Saturday and only rested on Sundays. Then 40 hours. Instead of working five days, for 35 hours, let’s just work three days to make room for others to work.

How do you persuade people to take this on, when capitalist society tells us that the more you work the further you get?
If you want to work more, then work more. You can have two jobs: one from Monday to Wednesday and another from Thursday to Saturday. That’s an option. Another is to work three days and get trained on something the other days to get an even better job.

Read the rest at Bloomberg Businessweek

Photo: Prensa Internacional/Zuma Press

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