Meaning of 労働時間 in Japanese

It's a job worth doing, but if I think about the working hours and the risk ... I could be onto a real losing proposition here.

Argument continues about the "White collar exemption" that exempts specific white collar workers from the "8 hours in 1 day, 40 hours a week," working hours fixed by the Labour Standards Act.

Instead of laying off these workers, why don't we just cut their hours?