“And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing, and he says to them, ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle?' ”
But still the workers prove insufficient and the call comes for more workers (compare Matthew 9:38). So at around 5 pm (17:00 hours), at ‘the eleventh hour', He goes out and He still find labourers whom no one has hired. And He asks them why no one has hired them. The purpose of the question is in order to demonstrate that they are not layabouts, but have genuinely been there all day waiting for work. By this time they were aware that for that day at least, their children would go hungry.
It should be noted here that the assumption is that those who are not labouring for the estate owner are ‘idle' (not working). It visualises only one occupation that is worthwhile in this coming new age, that of serving the Lord of the vineyard.