VOX 1 man: "45 to maybe 50 hours a week."
VOX 2 woman: "I get in about 7 and usually leave any time between 5-6pm. Sometimes 50 hours,sometimes 60 hours, sometimes more."
VOX 3 woman: "I have taken days off before just to work, just to catch up.
Australian workers featured in a social media video released by the Australian Greens.
The Greens are hoping the video starts a debate on how Australians work and whether we need to work less.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale says a four-day working week, or six-hour days, with a guaranteed adequate income would make Australians happier, reduce the cost of childcare, and create more jobs for others.
The former doctor has raised the issue of working hours and the changing nature of the job market at an address to the National Press Club.
"The rise of digital and automated technologies means that up to 5 million existing jobs in this country may be lost in the next ten years. So how about we start a conversation about the future of work in this country. And how about we question the entrenched political consensus that a good life can only come from more work, from working harder. How about we have a discussion about the things we really value in life: spending time with our friends and family, relationships, leisure, volunteering, contributing to your local community, creativity."
Senator Di Natale says while he welcomes discussion about the 16 per cent of people who want to work more hours, he also wants to find out more about the Australians who want to work less.
"But what we don't hear about is from the more than one in four Australians who want to work less. A four-day working week or a six-hour day. It might make us happier. It might create more opportunities for others who want more work. It might reduce the cost of full-time childcare. Many in the business community are already doing this. Some companies have already implemented a three-day working week."
John Buchanan is the Director of the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
He says since the late 1970s, Australia has one of the highest levels of part-time unemployment.
With that is high levels of underemployment and, at the other extreme, high levels of extended hours for full-time workers.
He's told the A-B-C the idea of a four-day working week has some merit and a similar debate has been taking place in other developed countries.
"There have been very important debates in France and Germany on how you handle workingtime, but once again they have lost their confidence as their economies have faltered. But the French in the 90s and the German engineering sector in the late 1990s early 2000s identified ways in which you could redistribute the hours by supporting training people in lower grades ofwork to take on the work of people in higher grades. You just can't cut the hours and expect an automatic gain. You have to have a total policy mix."
The Greens also want the conversation on work to include debate about a guaranteed adequate income.
They say many countries are trialling models of a social security safety net that are designed to look after everyone in a 21st century economy where the way we work has radically changed.
