Truly Free: Rethinking work in the age of exhaustion

By Tracey Freiberg*

Work in 2025 allows people to work together in unseen ways, as we know very well in the Economy of Francesco and the heavy use of WhatsApp, Google Drive, and other technological tools that enable instantaneous collaboration. We can now build long-lasting, meaningful relationships that started online. We wear how busy we are, how many meetings we had today, or how many likes our post received as a badge of honor. Yet, the sensation of always being on call or always thinking about work comes at a price: exhaustion and burnout.

While many of us are always connected, which can be interpreted as always working, those with essential jobs, requiring in-person and often physical output, are working long hours and/or multiple jobs — one person’s hustle culture is another person’s necessity to get by or merely survive. On one hand, participation in the gig economy lets you be your own boss, commanding your own time, picking up contracts or gigs as it suits you. Alternatively, short-term work allows employers to normalize overworking workers, or otherwise exploit them, as it suits their bottom line. The threat of being replaced is commonplace for many of us. Such economies that reward cost minimization rely on the erosion of our safety nets, such as the invisible labor of our care workers, who are often also migrants, and the degradation of the natural world — phenomena which routinely go undermeasured in our most common economic variables.

Coinciding with the rise of social movements like Occupy Wall Street in this century, organizations like the UN have promoted decent work and similar ideas to combat burnout and exhaustion. Over the past 25 years, such exercises have allowed multinational agencies to have authority over what makes a job “good”. For example, Sustainable Development Goal 8 has several target indicators that let us know if a country enables decent work, such as average hourly earnings, unemployment rates, and occupational injury rates. Such variables undeniably rely on the underlying institutions, and therefore vary depending on context. At the Economy of Francesco, we prefer the idea of dignified work, which allows the worker autonomy over deciding if a job is “good” or “bad”. By recognizing dignity, we avoid a top-down approach that has become commonplace over the past several decades, if not longer.

For example, in the United States, we largely only allow full-time workers to access benefits such as healthcare, flexible working arrangements, or paid leave. It is the responsibility of the worker to seek out decent jobs that provide such benefits, and it’s ultimately the worker’s fault if they cannot find jobs that provide benefits. Further, the federal law allows the individual company to set the parameters for classifying full- and part-time workers; some states like New York further specify that more than 30 hours is considered to be full-time employment. The finger-pointing and blame-shifting create a new type of labor exploitation, where workers, especially those from traditionally marginalized communities, cannot leave jobs not just for the loss of pay, but also for the loss of vital benefits. Especially for workers with families, they often must decide between caring for themselves (or a loved one) or getting a paycheck. The prominence of informal work further complicates who is eligible for benefits, again depending on which country you live in or who considers you to be a citizen.

If the worry of getting by wasn’t enough, the rise of artificial intelligence has recalled an old economic tradeoff and deeply scared many of our young workers. The idea that human efforts can be automated, or that labor can be replaced with capital, is hardly new. As organizational decisions seem to be increasingly more business cycle-driven, corporations also appear to be using the prospect of AI as a reason to reduce headcount, even if they aren’t implementing reciprocal technology. But in a post-COVID global economy, fighting for workers is an overwhelming obstacle.

So, what would rethinking work in the age of exhaustion entail? The Jubilee reminds us that the economy should focus on social justice, care for the Earth, and freedom from debt. It also reminds us that growth shouldn’t be the only goal of our economy: it should allow for human flourishing, and not at the expense of non-human life. For one, we at the Economy of Francesco value the intrinsic value of work — the idea that our labor contributes to the greater societal good. It requires us to view all jobs as good jobs and to prioritize dignity, where the worker feels they are a vital part of the process. While an overhaul of the current system is hardly realistic, we believe that the social responsibility of employers goes a long way in the push for dignity in work. With dignity, we can focus on employers and workers who care about the social good, as well as their personal outcomes.

*PhD St. John’s University, New York, USA