Given that Spain is set to test a four-day work week in response to the coronavirus pandemic, experts have stated that it could mean a more permanent change in attitudes about our work-life balance.
The Spanish government agreed last week to steer a 32-hour week over three years without lowering workers’ wages and put € 50 million ($ 60 million) on project costs for companies that apply to participate .
Inigo Errejon, who leads the small Spanish left-wing party Mas Pais that led the plan, tweeted at the time that the funding was intended, according to a translation, “to direct the economy towards improving health, protecting the environment and increasing productivity “.
Joe Ryle, who is part of the 4-day-week campaign in the UK, told CNBC by phone that the concept “has grown in popularity and momentum since Covid’s success”.
He said the sudden shift to the vast majority of people working from home “has opened people’s eyes to the fact that change can happen and that it can happen very quickly if we choose to”.
By spending more time at home, Ryle said workers also had more time “to re-imagine what is important in their lives”.
The 4-day weekly campaign wrote an open letter to a number of world leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, in November, encouraging them to consider introducing a shorter work week in response to the pandemic. The letter highlighted how shorter working hours were used in times of economic crisis to more evenly distribute the workload between the unemployed and the “overemployed” – people who work more hours than they would prefer.
Japan and ‘Karoshi’
Japan may also consider switching to a four-day work week after Kuniko Inoguchi, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, made a proposal in its parliament last week. However, the Japanese proposal could include a loss of wages for the extra day off.
And while in the case of Japan it is unclear whether the proposal was motivated by the pandemic, the country has long had a reputation for tolerating a culture of longer working hours. Japan even has a name for “death by overwork”: “Karoshi”.
While the situation may not be quite as serious as some other countries, the feeling of being overworked or burned out has definitely worsened amid the pandemic. A lot of research has shown that people around the world have worked at home longer in the past year.
A report produced by the 4-day weekly campaign published in October with think tanks Autonomy and Compass cited research by the Mental Health Foundation that found that Brits working from home an average of 28 hours of overtime per month during the pandemic Afford .
Indeed, Ryle pointed out that the UK has some of the longest working hours in Europe.
“We have one of the least productive economies and we have the fewest public holidays,” said Ryle, who had previously worked for the UK’s leading opposition Labor Party, when they suggested a four-day week as one of their possible strategies in the UK last choice.
“Rethink the way we work”
While a shorter work week doesn’t seem to be on the agenda of the current UK government, some Scottish lawmakers support the idea of the country becoming independent from the UK
Lee Robb, a member of the ruling Scottish National Party in Scotland, argued in the light of Covid at the party conference in November. “The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives, but has also given us the opportunity to reset and rethink the way we work,” he said.
In Scotland’s public sector alone, UK think tank Autonomy released data in December showing that a four-day week would cost between £ 1.4 billion (US $ 1.9 billion) and £ 2 billion a year, but between £ 45,000 and could create 59,000 new jobs in the sector.
Later that month, Autonomy published a broader UK study using profitability statistics from over 50,000 UK companies. It found that in the worst case scenario, most UK businesses could afford a four-day week with no loss of wages and once the initial stages of the coronavirus crisis were over.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also encouraged employers who might consider giving employees a shorter work week to help boost and bring back the country’s tourism sector after the pandemic.
In the meantime, the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has spoken out in favor of a four-day working week consisting of six-hour days.
“Unemployment Crisis”
In addition to the potential affordability of a shorter work week, it has also been found that workers are becoming more productive. A well-known example is that of Microsoft Japan, which closed its offices for a month every Friday for its 2,300 employees and whose productivity in terms of revenue per employee increased by 40%.
Kate Soper, professor emeritus of philosophy at London Metropolitan University, told CNBC that the discussion about shorter work weeks is likely to gain momentum as more work becomes automated through technology.
She said that we are facing an “unemployment crisis” due to the increased use of automated systems in the workplace, but argued that instead of “complaining about job losses, we should see this as an opportunity to change all of our policies on prosperity.” actually to rethink “. and “moving away from an essentially work-related understanding of identity”.
In her recent book, Life After Growth: For an Alternative Hedonism, Soper quoted a prediction by renowned economist John Maynard Keynes that people could only work 15 hours a week by 2030.
Soper also advocated the “immense environmental benefit” of working less.
Research published in December by the UK’s University of East Anglia, the University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project found that global public health restrictions resulted in record falls in global carbon emissions in 2020.
Ryle reiterated the point made by Mas Pais’ Errejon that a shorter work week is “good for the economy, good for workers and good for the environment” all round.
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