Indian billionaire thinks weekends off work are a mistake
He’s said this before but now, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy has doubled down on his previous statements that 70-hour work weeks will save India. Also, the country doesn’t need weekends off, apparently.
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He’s said this before but now, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy has doubled down on his previous statements that 70-hour work weeks will save India. Also, the country doesn’t need weekends off, apparently.
Murthy, who founded Infosys, an Indian digital services and consulting company, in 1981, spoke at the Global Leadership Summit in Mumbai last week and declared he did not “believe in work-life balance.”
According to Murthy, India is too poor and needs to work extra hard to improve its situation – rest can wait.
“I don't believe in work-life balance. I have not changed my view. I will take this with me to my grave,” he told CNBC-TV18 when reminded of his comments a year ago about the 70-hour work week.
Murthy, 78, added that he was disappointed when Indian companies switched from a six-day workweek to a five-day workweek. Like a true workaholic, he said he worked six and a half days a week until retirement.
To Murthy – who is the father-in-law of former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak – Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, and his cabinet are good examples of proper workaholism. Modi allegedly toils for 100 hours a week.
Alas, the law doesn’t agree. India’s Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code limits working days to eight hours.
Interestingly, Murthy is not facing as much backlash in India as Qu Jing, the PR chief of Chinese tech firm Baidu did in China when she publicly demanded workers be available 24 hours a day and said they shouldn’t even expect weekends off. Qu had to resign in the aftermath.
Prior to the 20th century, a typical factory employee would indeed work up to 100 hours per week. The concept of a weekend was not widespread, and the phrase “work-life balance” wasn’t even a thing.
Thanks to the relentless campaigning of factory workers, the world has now had a 40-hour work week with a two-day weekend for around 90 years.
People who work more than 55 hours every week are 1.66 times more likely to get depression and 1.74 times more likely to suffer from anxiety, studies have shown.
