The 4-day work week is coming to Germany

Posted by Thomas Klikauer and Danny Antonelli

Giving workers an extra day off a week actually increases productivity, boosts physical and mental health and reduces CO2 emissions. These are some of the surprising benefits of a four-day working week, research shows. Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in January 2023, Sander van ‘t Noordende, CEO of HR consulting firm Randstad, said the four-day working week was “a business imperative”.

World Economic Forum

As long as capitalism has been dominant, workers have sought to reduce the working hours forced upon them by management. 

Over the past century, workers have gradually won a reduction in time spent working, from 16 hours per day to 14, to 12, to 10, to 8, and in some countries to 7 hours per day. However, only a few countries have implemented the 35 hour week. 

The latest attempt at reduction in this long battle is the four-day work week. Recently, a new study by the Dutch multinational human resource consulting firm Randstad and Germany’s “ifo institute” (Institute for Economic Research) found – rather remarkably – that eleven percent (11%) of German companies are already offering the four-day week. 

On the downside, more than two thirds of the managers and corporate bosses in the companies surveyed still see a four-day week as impossible. 

Employers in the past also claimed that a reduction from 14 to 12 to 8 and then to 7 hours per day was impossible because profits would suffer, companies would go bust, and capitalism would disintegrate. 

Still, the reduction in working hours came. Bewilderingly, companies did not collapse. Even more astonishing was the fact that despite the high-profile fearmongering of corporate bosses, capitalism did not implode! Astoundingly, the very opposite occurred: capitalism thrived. 

This happened regardless of what the apostles of neo-liberalism had predicted – and still carry on predicting.

Despite all the positive news about increased profits and healthier workers, the recent survey also found that for a hard core of companies, the four-day work week is simply not an issue. 

Many workers are asking themselves if the reduction of working days (not necessarily of working hours), with full salary, is merely a dream (workers) or a nightmare (bosses). 

Still, some German companies do see the four-day work week as a viable model. In the 11% of German companies that do offer a four-day work week, it comes with a not insignificant snag. 

In these companies, more than half of all employees have foregone “parts” of their salary to get to the four-day work week. In other words, these workers value free time more than money.

Of those, 39% simply reduced their working time by one day. They work four days instead of five days with the same amount of hours. Of the those who have the four-day work week, about 10% can reduce their working hours at full pay. 

Instead of a four-day work week, many true believer (in capitalism) HR-managers expect the exact opposite to happen in the near future. 

They believe that there is a greater need for employees – and perhaps even longer working hours – because of the acute shortage of skilled workers. 

Unsurprisingly, a whopping 61% of the companies surveyed see themselves at the mercy of the shortage of skilled workers. 

To them, the four-day work week would make the problem of skill shortage worse. Simultaneously, 52% of corporate bosses see their traditional organizational setup as an obstacle set against the four-day work week. 

Also, a further 40% expect financial losses for the entire economy if the four-day work week is introduced. Of course this notion is now approaching the status of an urban myth.

What the survey shows us is the view of corporate functionaries, such as HR managers, which is not based on facts, only on opinion. 

For the “ifo” institute survey, more than 600 HR-managers in Germany were interviewed. It was done on behalf of the HR-consultancy Randstad. It was actually Randstadt – as revealed at the beginning of this article – that said: the four-day working week was “a business imperative.”

However, those HR managers also said that an attractive four-day work week might also lead to organizational incentives for hiring foreign specialists. 

Among the small percentage of companies that already have the four-day work week, a little less than half of them implemented a reduction in salary for workers. 

Just over a third of the HR people in the companies surveyed don’t expect any positive effects from a four-day week, while 59% of all HR-managers expect higher expenses for the company. 

Beyond that, 61% of the companies surveyed fear that the shortage of workers and skilled workers will worsen if a four-day work week is introduced. 

While almost a fifth of all companies in Germany are discussing an introduction of the four-day work week, about 38% replied that the four-day work week is currently not an issue for them. In a little less than a third of the companies, managers consider the four-day week to be problematic. 

The question must be asked: Is that related to a reduction of their power over workers?

Beyond all that, the four-day work week is slightly more commonly found in small companies rather than in large companies. 

Large corporations, with a top-down management pyramid, seem to be rather inflexible. On the other hand, 14% of companies with less than 50 employees are using the model. 

For large companies with more than 500 employees, this figure is about 7%. The largest group of companies (45%) for which the four-day work week is not really a pressing issue are medium-sized companies with 250 to 499 employees. 

According to results from Spain and Belgium, however, they are the ones who could benefit from the change.

Of the German companies that have introduced the four-day work week or are planning to so, about half report a reduction in hours coupled with less salary. 39% reported splitting full-time positions into four instead of five days. Only about a tenth of the companies reduce hours and pay the same salary. 

Interestingly, 35% of all companies are expecting benefits because of increased employee retention – less turnover of staff. The idea that the four-day work week will lead to higher motivation among employees is shared by 32%. 

In addition, 26% of companies expect that workers will take fewer days off because of a better work-life balance. Meanwhile, 26% also expect more job applicants. 

This might become a positive aspect since 59% of HR-managers mentioned that more staff would be needed. Just over half of all companies also indicated that there was a demand for organizational change in the wake of the four-day work week. 

The problem seems to be that a perceived lack of skilled workers might influence decisions for or against the four-day work week. 42% of participants said “no” to whether their company is influenced by the lack of work and skilled workers in their decision about a possible four-day work week. 

However, almost a third reported that this might speak against introducing the four-day work week. Another 16% said that this will influence them. In other words, corporate bosses fear a worsening impact of the skilled worker shortage if the four-day work week is introduced. 

Overall, 61% of respondents see themselves at the mercy of the shortage of skilled workers while 16% believe that this has no impact. 

At the same time, there are significantly more participants in manufacturing who believe that the situation is getting worse (67%) than, by comparison, in retail (every second company) and in Germany’s service sector (61%). 

In addition, companies in the retail and service sectors are more likely to expect that the shortage of jobs and skilled workers will have no impact (17%) than companies in Germany’s manufacturing industry (13%). 

In other words, there is a link between the four-day work week and the shortage of labour and skilled workers. This also sheds some light on the problem of having a too small pool of skilled workers from which companies can recruit. 

All in all, political incentives could remedy this situation, for example, by making it easier to hire foreign specialists. 

And by fighting the reactionary, backward-looking and xenophobic AfD – Germany’s neofascist political party. The AfD’s strong anti-foreigner (yet paradoxically neoliberal) stance does not aid in the recruitment of foreign workers.

Despite all this, almost every fourth company reports that skilled workers are still available. Politics could help, for example, by lowering language barriers and easing up on the current mandatory language qualifications, especially since most major multinationals already have English as their company language. This would reduce the current organizational and financial burden on companies. 

18% of the respondents would be happy to see an easing in the recognition of foreign degrees/qualifications. 17% see a reduction in bureaucracy as helpful. Stunningly, only 7% of all HR-managers feel supported by government during onboarding. 

In addition, manufacturing companies see a greater advantage in reducing state bureaucracy (22%) than commercial-financial (12%) and service industry companies (16%). 

Almost half of all participants (48%) still find bureaucratic obstacles to hiring foreign workers to be too high. 39% do not see any practical help coming for their company. 

In the end, the 11% of German companies that offer the four-day work week turn out to be a surprisingly high number. Not so surprising, however, is the fact that small companies are more likely to introduce the four-day work week rather than large corporations. 

That large corporations are inflexible is a rather well-known fact. The metaphor used is the one of the super-tanker that cannot easily switch course. 

The most crucial takeaway from the new Randstad survey is that management on its own will not push for the reduction of working time. 

Since only 11% have converted to the four-day working week also means that a whopping 89% have “not converted” to the four-day week. In other words, on its own, management will not introduce the four-day work week.

This has been so throughout the history of capitalism. It has been the labour movement and trade unions that have struggled for a reduction of working time, and this includes the four-day work week. 

Without the organized power of labour, the four-day work week will remain a peripheral issue which affects only about 11% of German companies.

No matter how many positive results are made public about the four-day working week, the capitalist indoctrination of management and owners – which includes the mantra “might is right” – continues to resist logic and therefore perpetuate the struggle of workers to make the recalcitrant see the benefits of the four-day working week for both workers and management.

Born on the foothills of Castle Frankenstein, Thomas Klikauer (PhD) is the author of 995 publications, including a book on Managerialism and a book The Language of Managerialism.

Danny Antonelli grew up in the USA, now lives in Hamburg, Germany and writes radio plays, stories and is a professional lyricist and librettist. 

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