Looking back at 2023: four-day week gains momentum

In addition to the pilot programmes supported by 4 Days Week Global, the most recent of which are in Brazil, Portugal and Germany, two governments in Europe have actively supported the four-day week. In Spain, the government has encouraged companies with fewer than 250 employees in the industrial sector to switch to the short week. More than sixty small and medium-sized businesses have benefited from state funding to implement the new work organisation. In return, they have undertaken to reduce working hours by at least 10%, with no loss of income for employees. In two years’ time, the public authorities will decide whether to extend the four-day week to all companies in the country. But it is in Belgium that the government has gone the furthest by introducing it into the Labour Code. Belgian employees now have the option of working a four-day week instead of a five-day week, subject to the employer’s agreement, but without any reduction in working hours.

The concept is also appealing to trade unions

In Germany, IG Metall announced last spring that it wanted to make the switch to a four-day week a central issue in collective bargaining in the steel industry. Its development is also one of the objectives of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Finally, the positive results obtained by switching from a five-day to a four-day week, particularly in Iceland, the United Kingdom and Portugal, are attracting new companies around the world every day. This is the case, for example, of the British online bank Atom Bank, which, after testing a 34-hour week spread over four days for a year, announced at the beginning of January 2023 that it would be adopting it on a permanent basis. The same is true of the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo, which last March signed an agreement with the unions to allow employees to opt for a four-day week, with 9 hours a day for equal pay. The movement therefore seems to be well under way and should continue in 2024.