Working 48 hours a week leaves many Vietnamese too exhausted to spend

As Vietnam debates a shift to a 40-hour work week, concerns persist that shorter hours could undermine productivity, strain businesses, and slow economic growth. Yet viewed through the lens of supply and demand, particularly domestic consumption and money circulation, a reduction in working hours could do the opposite: stimulate new growth.

Vietnam today does not suffer from a lack of supply. From consumer goods and food to tourism, services, automobiles, and resort real estate, production capacity is ample. The real constraint is demand - not solely because incomes are low, but because workers lack the time and energy to consume.

Long working hours trap many employees in a narrow cycle: work, go home, recover, then return to work. Weekends, rather than being devoted to travel, shopping, or health, are often spent catching up on sleep or attending to family obligations. When personal time is compressed, consumption is inevitably suppressed. Money that could circulate instead sits idle or flows into savings and speculative channels.

People shop at a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City, June 18, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Tung

Economic history suggests that sustainable growth does not come from longer hours, but from turning workers into consumers. A well-known example is the United States in the early 20th century, when Henry Ford reduced working hours to eight a day and raised wages. The aim was not only labor stability, but enabling workers to rest, enjoy life, and ultimately buy the products they made - creating a virtuous cycle of production, consumption, and reinvestment.

If Vietnam adopted a 40-hour work week and allowed businesses to stagger two consecutive rest days across the week, consumption patterns could shift markedly. With a more evenly distributed workforce, millions of people would be shopping, traveling, and using services every day, easing weekday slumps and weekend overcrowding while improving the efficiency of tourism and service infrastructure.

Shorter hours would also allow workers to manage healthcare, administrative tasks, and personal needs during weekdays instead of avoiding time off for fear of losing attendance bonuses - despite legal sick-leave protections. This reflects a deeper issue: an economic model still dependent on extended working hours rather than higher productivity.

A move to 40 hours would compel businesses to reorganize operations, adopt technology, and improve management to generate more value per hour worked - a necessary step to escape growth based on cheap labor and overwork.

Without change, Vietnam risks following the path of some high-income but high-stress societies: economically successful, yet demographically fragile, with exhausted populations reluctant to have children. The cost would be felt not only in slower growth, but in long-term social and demographic strain.

Shorter working hours are not a privilege. They are an economic strategy. The real question is not whether Vietnam can afford to reduce working time, but whether it has the vision to turn leisure into a driver of sustainable growth.