Sarcină

Do you think people are working longer hours than in the past? Measured in hours, probably not — the figures for most developed countries have been falling slowly for a century. What has changed is that work has become harder to leave. A factory shift ended when you walked out of the building; a job with a phone in your pocket doesn't, and I suspect that's what people are actually reporting when they say they work more. Why do some jobs pay far more than others? Partly scarcity, partly bargaining power, and the second explains more than people usually allow. Surgeons are paid well because few people can do it, which is the intuitive answer. But nurses are also hard to replace and are paid a fraction as much, so scarcity alone plainly isn't sufficient. The difference is largely how organised a profession is and how easily it can withhold its labour. Should companies be responsible for their employees' wellbeing? For the parts they create, yes — and I'd draw the line there. If a company sets workloads that make people ill, that is straightforwardly its responsibility, and offering a meditation app instead of fixing the workload is a way of relabelling a structural problem as a personal one. What I'd resist is the broader version, where the employer becomes responsible for an employee's whole life. That tends to serve the company more than the worker.