The (Overdue) Collapse of the 9-5 Job

Thanks to MANSCAPED for sponsoring today’s video! Get 20% OFF Free International Shipping with promo code “HMW20“ at Sign up for our FREE newsletter! - 1:39 go support @pinsenttailoring’s work ----- Our Other Channel: @HowHistoryWorks Edited By: Andrew Gonzales Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images For sponsorship inquiries, please contact sponsors@ Sign up for our newsletter 👈 All materials in these videos are for educational purposes only and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. This video does not provide investment or financial advice of any kind. #career #business #jobs ------ Companies are doing mass layoff while complaining about not being able to find enough employees, some workers are min-maxing the system by working multiple full-time jobs at the same time, while others need to work hours of unpaid overtime at just one job… This is not to mention that the gig economy is consuming entire sectors of the workforce… The 9-5 was created by American labour unions in the 1800’s and became mainstream over one HUNDRED [100] years ago, when jobs looked like this, and this… it was revolutionary for its time… but how many of the modern problems in corporate America are caused by trying to make an outdated system fit with every single modern job… A report by the management consulting firm McKinsey and company found that two thirds [2/3] of the average humans wealth is in the work they can do over their lifetime. Everybody has time, effort and experience that they can trade for money and those tradable commodities are worth twice as much as all of the other assets that the average person possesses. A regular nine to five [9-5] job has been a great way for billions of people to safely exchange a predictable amount of their time for a predictable pay check, with predictable career advancement as they gain more experience. But this one size fits all model for work doesn’t fit with every job and trying to make it work has been bad for employees AND bad for companies for three reasons, which is causing three equally terrible trends in the job market. The first trend is that it makes time a worthless asset. The Ford Motor Company was one of the first businesses in America to adopt the nine to five forty-hour work week. Henry Ford did this to make his company THE most attractive place for auto workers to get a job. This allowed him to pull talent away from other automakers without paying his workers more. In order to compete with Ford other automakers were forced to offer the same forty-hour work week with paid overtime. Eventually in order to compete with the automakers other companies were also forced to offer 9-5 jobs so that their best workers didn’t quit to go and work on a car assembly line. These auto workers had tightly defined and repetitive tasks, so unless the workers succumbed to exhaustion, they could do a consistent amount of work for every hour they spent at their post, and every additional hour would produce the same amount of output. If you work in a modern office job you will know that your work is nothing like this. Sometimes there is a lot to do, and sometimes there is nothing to do, but you still need to be there eight hours a day looking busy no matter what. Back when the 40-hour week was being fought for by workers unions, most Americans worked in manufacturing, but today most people work in the service sector which is more diverse than you might expect. Clearly these jobs are very different, and should have a different schedule but most of the corporate world has tried to make the 9-5 fit all jobs… Work comes and goes as internal and external customers make demands, and that means when people are busy and need more than eight hours in the day to finish their work they are expected to work “reasonable unpaid overtime” … According to an ADP Research Institute Study of office professionals unpaid overtime jumped to an average of NINE point two HOURS per WEEK in 2021, more than a full extra day to keep up with employer demands. BUT when there is little to no work to do because a project has just been completed or sales are seasonally slow, workers are still expected to put in their 40 hours a week, because “that’s what the business is paying them for”. If you are in this kind of job your best option is to try and find something that makes you look busy, but “if you don’t have something to work on” you are probably going to be given meaningless tasks just to fill the mandatory eight-hour day… So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out why we might be in the midst of the overdue collapse of the 9-5.