Which countries have adopted the four-day workweek, and how is it working out so far?

January 4, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed discussions about the four-day workweek, prompting both employees and employers to reconsider the value of workplace flexibility and benefits.

The concept is straightforward: employees would put in the same amount of work, four days a week, for the same pay and benefits.

Therefore, businesses with shorter workweeks would do business with fewer meetings and more independent work.

Employees in Belgium obtained the opportunity to work a full workweek in four days rather than the customary five without losing pay in February.

On November 21, the law went into effect, giving workers the option of working four or five days a week.

However, this does not suggest that they would work less; rather, it just means that they will spread out their working hours over fewer days.

Companies in the UK who tested the four-day workweek for six months are now intending to adopt it permanently, describing the trial as “very successful.”

The largest-ever six-month pilot program of its kind, which began on June 6, has involved dozens of firms. Its goal is to examine how shorter working hours affect workplace productivity, employee well-being, the environment, and gender equality.

The program, which is being run by researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Boston College as well as the non-profit advocacy organizations 4 Day Week Global, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign, and the UK think tank Autonomy, has so far attracted the participation of more than 70 UK companies and over 3,300 employees.

Wales is also planning a trial, while a government experiment in Scotland is scheduled to begin in 2023.

The Scottish National Party, which is in power, made the decision as part of a campaign pledge (SNP).

20% less hours will be worked by employees, yet no remuneration would be lost.

Spain started a pilot study in December after the tiny left-wing party Más Pas announced earlier this year that the government had granted their request to start a modest pilot program of a four-day workweek.

Without decreasing salaries, the pilot will assist SMEs in shortening their working week by at least half a day.

The pilot is an experiment to examine if output can be increased. According to Spain’s Industry Ministry, companies that sign up can receive assistance from a €10 million government fund, but they must devise strategies to boost productivity that make up for the salary cost overruns.

Iceland carried undertaken the largest trial of a 35–36-hour workday (reduced from the customary 40 hours) between 2015 and 2019 without any calls for a corresponding decrease in compensation.

In the test phase, about 2,500 people participated.

A four-day workweek with full pay was trialed in Sweden in 2015 to varying degrees of success.

Some people weren’t happy with the idea of spending money on the trial, which was to test six-hour workdays instead of eight-hour ones without losing income.

Even left-leaning political parties believed that doing this on a wide scale would be prohibitively expensive.

The average workweek in Germany is among the shortest in all of Europe. The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that the typical work week is 34.2 hours.

However, trade unions are requesting even shorter working hours.
The largest labor union in the nation, IG Metall, asked for reduced workweeks last year, claiming that doing so would assist to preserve jobs and prevent layoffs.

Following the Japanese government’s declaration of a plan to improve work-life balance throughout the country in 2021, larger corporations are stepping into this market in other nations like Japan.

This could benefit the nation, where the death rate from overwork is high, for a number of reasons.

Overworked employees frequently get sick or develop suicide thoughts.

Source: Euronews.next
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