South Cambridgeshire Council (it had to be the other-worldly types) plans to be the first local authority in the UK to establish a four-day working week for its staff. Local ratepayers are hardly surprised. As an economist, however, I am both surprised and disappointed.
A six-month experiment with the four-day working week (led, of course, by Oxbridge academics) began in June. It covers only 3,300 employees in 70, mostly smaller, companies, and it is scheduled to run until the end of December. Many of those companies say they won’t be continuing the change after that: with people working different days, they are struggling with rotas and team management, and they realise that a four-day week suits some workers, but not others.
It is odd, therefore, that a large local authority should plan a permanent move to the idea, before even this slim experimental evidence is in. In Sweden, a reduction in working hours from 40 to 30 proved too costly to continue, which France discovered that four-days-a-week workers put in the same hours as before — but it cost more, since more of those hours were on overtime rates. True, there was the same boost to worker moral that has been found in most such experiments. But it was only temporary. As soon as people get used to the new hours, they seem no happier than they were before. The UK already has above-average job satisfaction, so it’s hard to justify changing things here.
Proponents say that four-day-weeks mean less employee absence, burnout and tiredness, though if people are working longer on they days they do work, maybe that will prove temporary too. And proponents say that a four-day week allows employees more flexibility: but flexible working and four-day working are not the same thing.
Some jobs require a seven-day presence (in the case of councils, social work, perhaps) and other people (like Cambridge ratepayers) aren’t on four-day weeks. And while advocates say that four-day working brings a rise in productivity, you need a huge rise in productivity to maintain the same output. Again, we will see whether the effect lasts.
Critics argue that four-day weeks will be fine for better-paid, salaried workers, but a disappointment to those paid by the hour — potentially making inequality higher; and some workers, such as older employees, may struggle with the greater intensity of work demanded on the four days they do work. Additionally, the UK labour market is already tight, so it seems short-sighted to tighten it even further by reducing working hours.
It's interesting that worldwide, four-day working has expanded fastest in the food and drink and other retail sectors, where it might well make sense for workers in those sectors, who are often young and not looking for full-time work. The other sector where it has risen fastest are government, including education and utilities. That might be no surprise to taxpayers, who wonder if they are getting much value even out of five-day working. And anyway, should working hours not be a choice, negotiated between individual workers and employers, rather than something imposed by monopolistic state institutions?