COMP NEWS – Another large study has suggested that employees engaged in a 4-day workweek are happier and more productive than their five-day workweek counterparts.

Good news for everyone interested in spending less time working: The largest four-day-workweek study to date suggests that employees who work a shorter week are just as if not more productive than their five-day-a-week counterparts. The U.K. trial also found that four-day-week workers are more energized during their workdays, having used their extra day off to pursue hobbies and exercise and spend time with their families.

The trial, which involves over 3,300 workers at 70 companies that spanned from fish-and-chip shops to financial firms, is far from the first to consider whether we’d all be better off working four days a week. Studies have long found that people who work fewer hours for a decent income tend to be happier and more productive. A 2019 study conducted on Microsoft workers in Japan yielded other benefits: Employers saved on electricity, because the workplace was closed an extra day.

The discussion around the four-day workweek has intensified over the past three years. Numerous countries – the U.S., Iceland, and New Zealand, among others – have studied the effects of limited work hours, with nearly every survey showing positive effects for both employers and employees.

Talk around the four-day workweek got more serious in 2020, when world leaders started pushing to ease up pandemic lockdowns in their countries. Since then, four-day-workweek trials have been rolled out in Iceland, New Zealand, and Scotland, all with promising results.

Data reviewed by 24/7 Wall St. indicates that the average American full-time employee works 41.5 hours a week, while about 11 percent of full-time employees work more than 50 hours per week.

A significant chunk of the workforce has left their jobs entirely, creating even longer hours and more pressure for those who still need a salary — who, as the proliferation of “quiet quitting” content on TikTok makes clear, are desperate for boundaries between work and the rest of their lives.

You can click here to read about the results of multiple 4-day workweek studies.

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