Sunday licensing laws were being debated in parliament to be relaxed and as a result the news took to the streets to get peoples reactions to the possibility, I thought that a number of peoples reactions were narrow minded especially in a time of austerity and a lack of jobs available on the market.
Firstly people seemed to think that simply because shops would have the possibility to remain open longer than 6 hours on a sunday it would automatically require every employee to work a full sunday on top of whatever hours they already work, which is rather stupid considering shops already open on a sunday and have to fix their hours to fit within a 6 hour schedule so deliberately open later in order to maximise the 6 hour limit.
The majority of workers fit within what is known as the 9-5 schedule, working 5 days a week and having the weekend off, as a result they would never be effected by the sunday relaxation of the licencing laws as they already do not work any day of the weekend, the simple matter is that extra hours provide extra opportunity for shopping giving a choice for either saturday or sunday as a day of relaxation spreading the weekend rush on a saturday in the shops over both days or even boosting the spending in the economy further, on top of this the additional hours would provide the further possibility of a sustainable part time job with those extra hours which reduces the spending on benefits to support those without a job as they would now be employed and also boost further spending as someone with a job would have disposable income to spend on the economy and further boost the economic foundation of the country.
Of course this is only a minor step in the right direction as you can see that the mindset of the individuals is that they have to work all hours an employer are open, perhaps this is how a lot of employers work feeding overwhelming hours to individuals rather than spreading it over a happy workforce, I have known this to be the case as in some instances depending on the area of the employment it is standard practice to have employees sign out of the working time directive, as a result have zero hour contracts and no guaranteed work but often be forced to take 50-80 hours a week per individual, with a current standard maximum working week of 48 hours this becomes excessive especially when you consider that essentially a 70 hour working week would suffice 2 individuals, and with a spread workload which provides greater time off, lower taxing of wages and a less stressed individual it is smarter to not overwork your employees.
France has a standard working week of 35 hours which is sufficient to pay all bills, and even reducing to this from a 48 hour working week provides an additional 13 hours per week if you apply this with relaxed licensing laws which would provide 2-4 hours of additional work which could provide a perfect part time university job, and if you add part time work hours of 16 on top of this it would provide a 32 hour working week which almost fulfills an extra full time position, if you further account for the additional demand for employment provided by a more stable economy where spending occurs once more due to people having more free time to spend shopping and on leisure activities and with the extra income through reduced taxes (and the heavily reduced requirement of the state to fund benefits through smarter measures than austerity and illegally witholding due benefits) this provides the most sensible path to providing further working positions for those who are seeking work and unable to find it through an economy where employers do not do enough to employ those who require it yet punish those seeking work desperately and are unable to find it.