If it was going to work, best do it in times of plenty...and without acres of debt over our heads.

21 hours a week sounds good. It's quite soul destroying spending most of your waking life at work.

I've always said the week was poorly designed. 2 days work and 5 days off sounds like a much better ratio to me, and theoretically we'd have full employment.

Unfortunately, some jobs carry responsibilities which can not be effectively shared and many skills are in short supply. Continuity is critical for the smooth running of much business, and you can't apply unskilled labour to a skilled job.

Thus, inevitably it is the unskilled jobs which are already low paid which are most suited to short hours and job sharing. The people taking such positions would have to take two jobs to make ends meet, and nothing of value would be achieved.

The only way to reduce working hours for everyone is to increase the skill level of the population as a whole. Medical staff could work shorter hours if there were more of them, for example. Unfortunately, that's a pipe dream. There's no magical XP power-up. Most people already strive to achieve the best position in life they can.

Yes but once your initial jobseekers expires things may be different. The problem is that many benefits are dependant on partners income. Yet if you were to go to a job and get told your pay would be based on what your partner earns it would be outrageous. But that is what happens to people on benefits, it also stops people getting back into work because if you are both on benefits it is impossible to would out if actually working makes you better off. That only happens if both of you can work.