Results from the four-day workweek in the Netherlands show that fewer hours are paired with high productivity per hour, disproving critics who had expected the opposite, the Financial Times reports.
It has also brought a very high employment rate (82%) compared with 75% in the UK, 72% in the US, and 69% in France, while the Netherlands also has the highest rate of part-time work in the OECD.
It has become increasingly common for full-time employees to compress their hours into four days instead of spreading them across five, says Bert Colijn, economist at Dutch bank ING. “The four-day workweek has become a habit,” he said. “I work five days, and sometimes I’m criticized for it!”.
The Netherlands is one of the strongest economies in the EU in terms of GDP per capita.
The Dutch experience shows that forecasts of economic self-destruction from implementing such a measure are exaggerated.
Despite a lower average number of hours worked per person, the Netherlands is among the wealthiest economies in the EU on a per capita GDP basis.
Meanwhile, the average weekly working time for people aged 20–64 in their main job is 32.1 hours—the lowest in the EU, according to Eurostat.
Women also have high employment rates in the Netherlands, especially compared with countries such as the US, where the average number of working hours is higher.
