4 day week not as good as it sounds?

A professor of Economics at UCC has said a lot more research is needed before a 4 day working week is adopted in Ireland.

Prof Wim Naudé told the Cork Independent that the implementation of a 4 day working week may actually lead to a decrease in productivity and even a potential increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants.

He explained: “Playing around with different work weeks is not something new; it's a very old idea. The first changes to the work week were actually proposed in the Soviet Union in the 1950s or 1960s. The end result of it was a huge failure and that's why I think we need to be careful.

“If we look at the 4 day work week from a historical perspective, the number of hours that the average labourer is working has been declining. The average worker in Ireland worked 3,000 hours per year 100 years ago. This has now dropped to about 1,700 hours per year.”

According to Prof Naudé, time spent away from work is only fully enjoyed on a long-term basis if spent with others, and a 4-day working week could make it difficult to coordinate time off with loved ones.

“We have a 7 day consumption cycle, which means that we produce 7 days a week. Somebody has still got to do the work.

“If people have 2 or 3 days off in a week, you only get real pleasure from that if you can spend it with other people.

If you're at home alone and your spouse and your children are not around on that particular day, you start to get unhappy,” he said.

Prof. Naudé’s comments come during an ongoing 6 month, 4 day working week pilot programme being rolled out in countries around the world, including a number of firms in Ireland.

The idea of the programme is that employees would work 4 days a week with the same pay and workload as a traditional 5 day week.

However, Prof. Naudé said he doesn’t believe 6 months is enough time to gather enough information on the psychological and economic effects of a 4-day working week.

“I have sympathy for more flexibility in the labour market but we need to do much more research and we need to look at whether this is really what we want to focus on in the labour market,” he said.

The pilot programme is being coordinated by not-for-profit group 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the UK think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University.

According to data collected by 4 Day Week Global, 63% of partaking businesses found it easier to attract and retain talent with a 4 day working week.

The same data also suggested that the vast majority of employees who work 4 day weeks are happier and less stressed.

Countries taking park in the coordinated pilot programme include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, and Scotland.