European Central: Four Day Work Week Gains Popularity In Europe

Delmaine Donson

Many of the news stories regarding the pandemic have been negative due to the death toll and threat to the health of individuals, but workers in some countries may benefit from changes to their work schedules. A four-day work week is starting to gain popularity in more countries. This would allow employees to have an additional day off meanwhile would be one less day they would be exposed to other employees and lowering the risk of getting sick of Covid-19. This of course would assume the employees are not using the extra day off to participate in activities that have a high risk of exposure to Covid-19.

Besides reducing the exposure of employees to Covid-19 to the pandemic, the idea of a shorter workweek has been catching on because of the additional free time employees have enjoyed during the Covid-19 pandemic. For some workers who have been able to work remotely, they have more time from not having to commute to work. Other workers who worked remotely were not as fortunate and worked longer hours than they did in the office. This has caused employees not only in Europe but worldwide to demand a better work-life balance as remote work is starting to end.  

In particular, the four-day workweek has gained traction in Iceland. 85 percent of Iceland’s labor force currently has the opportunity to work four days a week. This is after a trial that included roughly one percent of Iceland’s population successfully showed that productivity remained high despite working one less day. The trial was organized by Iceland’s national government and the Reykjavik City Council as civil society organizations and unions have been advocating for reduced workweeks. Workers also reported feeling better working fewer days. After the trial employees reported feeling better mentally and were enthusiastic to be able to spend more time with their families. This has led other countries to start trials as well to see if they can replicate the same success that Iceland had. A problem for Spanish employees who work for Telefonica is that if employees chose to work one less day, they saw a 15 percent reduction in their salaries. It is important to point out that employees who participate in the experiment with Telefonica are voluntarily participating and will work 32 hours a week. As many workers seem concerned about their financial wellbeing, it seems questionable how many employees would not only be willing to take a pay cut but also be able to financially afford it.

There is also a concern for how a shorter workweek would impact hourly workers. Many hourly workers are low-wage workers who are not able to afford to work fewer hours. As it is, there is concern over whether or not the minimum wage is high enough in some European Union countries. In the EU, people are considered to be under the poverty threshold if they earn less than 60 percent of the national median salary. One country particularly concerning is Germany. In 2019, the minimum wage increased on the first day of the year to 9.19 euros. The problem for minimum wage workers is this is only 49.5 euros above the national poverty threshold for Germany. Since then, the minimum wage has increased to 9.6 euros an hour. This still leaves minimum wage workers near the poverty line in Germany. For workers with children, minimum wage workers are definitely not above the threshold.

While a shorter workweek should result in working fewer hours for many employees, this would not be the first time there was a push to reform the work schedule for the benefit of workers. France is famous for shortening the work schedule to 35 hours in 2000. While this can be viewed as beneficial to employees to work fewer hours each week, it was also hoped that a 35-hour workweek would also decrease the unemployment rate in France by hiring more workers. While the unemployment rate did initially decline potentially partially as a result of a shorter workweek, after 2008 France’s unemployment rate shot up and has remained higher than it was in 2000 when the legislation to reduce the workweek was initially passed. There is now a push in France to further reduce the workweek to 32 hours. Supporters claim that a 32-hour workweek would create 1.5-2 million jobs, a significant number for a country with a total population of 67 million people.

This may make workers in other countries envious and may lead them to dream about moving to France but it is important to realize that a 32-hour workweek or a 35 workweek are too good to be true for many French employees. A problem that may make the 32-hour workweek unachievable is that there are already workers in France still working more than 35 hours a week. This is because the legislation for a 35-hour workweek does not outright ban working more than 35 hours a week, but forces bosses to pay their employees overtime. Northern European countries also look ideal for employees due to working fewer hours each year on average, but this is because a higher portion of employees is part-time. This shows the importance of fully investigating statistics rather than accepting them at face value.