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THE FIVE-DAY WEEK

by the past, technical improvements and managerial efficiency
 will, it may be hoped, discover solutions for these
difficulties in advance of their development into acute problems.

Other questions of a social character project themselves
into the five-day week discussion. If the attempt is made to
accomplish in five days what was formerly accomplished in
five and one-half or six days, what will be the effect upon
fatigue and health of workers? The pace of present-day
manufacturing is not leisurely. Even where physical effort
is reduced, mental concentration is likely to be intensified.
If the hours of the sixth day are spread over the week, or the
attempt is made in five unlengthened days to equal the
former five-and-a-half or six-day output, how will this additional
 application affect the worker? Will the extra day of
relaxation completely compensate for any added strain, or
will the accelerated pace of the five days tend to exhaust the
worker’s energy prematurely? It is possible that the tendency
 toward fewer working days is a natural sequel to the
intensification of modern business and industrial life. It may
be argued that, if work is to be performed under constantly
increasing pressure, allowance must be made for a greater
amount of relaxation and rest to compensate. It may be
that overnight recuperation will not be adequate and that
provision will have to be made for a more extended period of
rest at the end of each week.
Will the shortened work week, by creating more jobs, tend
to offset the apparently decreased demand for human labor,
caused by increased mechanization of productive processes?
Such a view is given color by the recent action of the Ford
Motor Company, a leading exponent of the five-day week, in
resuming six-day operation without sacrificing the principle
of the five-day week for the workers. Additional men have
been employed, and by means of a series of overlapping shifts
the plant will be operated six days, although individual employees
 will work only five days a week.
Still broader and more complex issues are met when questions
 of the social value of additional leisure are raised. Itis
recognized that increased leisure has come to have a definite
economic value under the present organization of industry,