Riduzione dell’orario e creazione di lavoro. Una nota critica-costruttiva sulla proposta di legge depositata in Parlamento

The proposal for a law on the reduction of the working week submitted to the Italian Parliament provides an opportunity for a critical and constructive reflection on the role that a reduction of standard working time can play in pursuing the goal of increasing and maintaining a high employment rate. To this end, the essay proposes to discuss what are the systemic conditions for demand and production growth to manifest their full employment-generating potential, while at the same time creating more employment and more leisure time, potentially for all those who participate in the ongoing process of change (and not only for the few who are in a position to work less). Two conditions are identified: (a) allowing working hours to decrease (tendentially) in line with increasing hourly labour productivity; (b) allowing real hourly wages to increase, also in line with hourly labour productivity. By holding employment growth and wage growth together, a working time reform would thus help to proactively address one of the fundamental problems of our socioeconomic system that has remained unanswered for decades. The essay also emphasises that in order to increase the social sustainability of growth, particularly in this difficult phase of technological and demographic transition, a new system of rules to improve working conditions is indispensable.