Employment

World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few companies are going back

The UK data strongly confirms the findings of smaller trials whose results were released in December, of companies based in the US, Ireland and Australia

The UK results are the second major data release in an ongoing series of 4-day tests coordinated by 4-Day Week Global, a New Zealand-based non-profit advocacy group. Picture: Getty

The largest-ever trial of the four-day work week found that most UK companies participating are not returning to the five-day standard, and a third are ready to make that change permanent.

The study involved 61 organisations and about 2,900 workers who voluntarily adopted truncated work weeks from June to December 2022. Only three organisations decided to pause the experiment, and two are still considering shorter hours, data released on Tuesday showed. The rest were convinced ...