Job Sharing: It's About Time to Get Rid of Overtime The idea behind "Job Sharing" goes back beyond galley slaves. In present, the old idea is accelerating off again in Europe. The theory is, that if people with jobs do a bit less and bring home a little less money, those without work can take up the relinquished hours and have a pay packet of their own. Employers said, that this doesn't work in practice, and unions, that represent the ones with jobs, said, fewer hours, yes; but less pay, no. Fact is, that the purchasing power could be maintained only by increasing handouts to the jobless, because European jobs will disappear as a consequence of the increased productivity and competition from low-wage countries. But the problem is, that the full-time jobs have to be maintained, while more and more indemnities have to be paid to an growing number of unemployed. So the only way out is job sharing. A lot of unions have provided more employment, but job creation still lags behind job loss. An often mentioned instance of sharing is Volkswagen in Germany, because they tried to secure jobs rather than creating them. So they saved about 20.000 jobs. A Professor mentioned, that " the difficulty is that people might be happy to work fewer hours but not to take pro-rata lower wages." So on his point of view, sharing leads to rising labor costs per unit of production. An employee of the Confederation of British Industry mentioned, that there is another problem, so he warns that sharing succeeds only if the two people involved are similarly competent, because otherwise the better worker gets preferential treatments, in form of full time occupation, and the other one is laid off. But in France, for example, they found out, that reducing and rearranging work hours can lead to more jobs. And the boss of a bakery organized, that those who work Saturdays get extra vacation rather than overtime pay. So sharing of work time is the solution to unemployment, and a lot of people that have been hired feel a sort of pride. Another French example is Hewlett-Packard's computer plant near Grenoble. They cut the average week from 39 to 33 hours with no salary reduction, and so they expected to create about 100 jobs.
