Ask HN: What % pay cut would you be willing to take for a 4-day work week?

7 points by psmithsfhn 5 years ago | 14 comments

ezekg 5 years ago |

I took a 70% pay cut to work 4 days a week. I wasn't happy, and I was constantly angry and burned out. I felt I worked too much and for no reason other than to make somebody else rich.

But I quit to work 100% on my own business, 4 days a week, so there's also that. :)

giantg2 5 years ago | |

I wish I had the skills and balls for that

beforeolives 5 years ago |

0%. I would like to make more money, not less. I'm not in a place (geographically or in my career) where I make enough to start voluntarily giving up a % of my salary.

On the other hand, if anyone is offering a 20%+ raise for a 6-day workweek, I would seriously consider it.

giantg2 5 years ago | |

I agree, but it would have to be more than 20% to be fair. Benefits are a big cost to employers. If they are the same benefits between a five and six day week, then I would want 25-30%.

LinuxBender 5 years ago |

I think this depends. Do I have the same workload as my 5 day week, but expected to do it in 4 days? If so, 0% reduction. If my workload is reduced 20%, then anything up to a 20% reduction may be appropriate.

psmithsfhn 5 years ago | |

for yourself or others, do you think your workload would be reduced?

or, would you be able to get the same or more done in 20% less time?

cercatrova 5 years ago | | |

I doubt it would be reduced, generally in these kinds of situations I've seen that the same level of effort is required, just compressed into 4 days rather than 5.

brtkdotse 5 years ago |

A really good way to do reduce your hour and actually increase your pay is to become a contractor.

For the past 3 years I’ve been working sub 30-hour weeks while increasing my post-taxes pay by 30-40%. The contracts are long (3-24mo), you can deduct equipment, courses and conferences and the boring stuff (bookkeeping, taxes, sales) can be outsourced for a fraction of your billing. A nice bonus is you don’t have to participate in all the meta-work (team building, internal trainings and all-hands).

dyeje 5 years ago |

0% because I think it will increase my productivity overall.

fundamental 5 years ago |

10% seems fairly reasonable given a hypothetical scenario. I would expect staying more refreshed would result in net higher productivity even with reduced hours on the clock. Usually the biggest risk going below 40 hours is benefits. Personally I do want to push for a 4 day work week in the future as it is a substantial increase in free time (2->3 days free a week is a huge leap).

evrazin 5 years ago |

I work 80% of the time, I get 80% of the money. Throw in the benefit of fulltime employees (ie; vacation weeks, dentals etc) and we got a deal.

psmithsfhn 5 years ago | |

i think this sounds very reasonable.

patatino 5 years ago |

I once negotiated instead of a raise, I would rather work four days for the same pay, and it got approved. That was a fun day :)

Not in the same job anymore, but maybe that is something people could try, reduce from 100% to 90% with the same pay and then to 80% over like 2-3 years.

psmithsfhn 5 years ago | |

sounds like a good idea to me.

i wonder if a 4-day work week would actually be attractive to employers, especially if they could take a cut (back) of salary.

maybe even something like....it's a 20% work time cut, so maybe for that, i'll need to give you %30 of my salary, which is a lot.

but if some of the studies are to be believed, then productivity can go up with a shorter work week, so salary should actually be _increasing_.

but...you got to get the deal done. so...