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I hope HN readers and OP realize the difference between "30 German companies trial 4 day week" and "Germany trials 4 day week", hence my dislike for the clickbait title which I hope would be edited to make it correct.
Also, according to FT[1] and Bloomberg[2], it seems the German government wants to get people to work more hours, not less, to combat economic slowdown and labor shortages, basically contradicting this article.
So which is it? Do you fix labor shortages and "the economy" by getting people to work longer hours or less hours?
Most German companies do not have a problem with 4 day week - but they will decrease your payment accordingly calling it a Part-Time job
Working here in Germany, I switched to part time at 75% (5 x 6 hours). Not having to grind another two hours per day is totally worth the pay decrease. Time is the most valuable resource we have.
The right to a part time job has been around for about twenty years i think. The current discussion is to rethink the workweek as four days, there are multiple models in talks (4x 10 hours, 4x 8 hours with less pay, etc..)
In my opinion the real problem is that the german tax system incentivises working less instead of more, as the marginal tax increases even for hours worked beyond the 40h work week -> the more you work the less you keep per hour.
4x10h 4 times per week, every week sounds horrible IMHO. I personally definitely can't be 20% more productive per day by working 2 extra hours.
This would only work if you clock in 10h on paper, but actually work much less hours from home where nobody tracks how much you actually work, but if have to actually clock in 10h per day at the office, plus commute time, I'll most likely just space out and watch the clock for the rest of those two hours. And then that extra free day per week would be to recover from the long working day at the office nullifying any advantage.
Healthcare workers often work on six-week rotations that average out to 37.5/40 h per week. The key word is average, because shifts are usually 12 hours and some weeks (one or two per six week rotation) are composed of 3 days on, 2 days off and 2 days on.
This is 60h / week.
Just 4 days a 6 hours, same pay, but fewer stupid meetings
> In my opinion the real problem is that the german tax system incentivises working less instead of more, as the marginal tax increases even for hours worked beyond the 40h work week -> the more you work the less you keep per hour.
Unless the marginal tax goes over 100% don't you still earn more total by working more?
Parent stated you earn less per hour, not in total. Tax rate stays below 100%, but increases as you earn more
This is a common misunderstanding in the United States, as well.
The issue in the US is that often part time jobs do not include health care, so switching to 4x32 is not something I've really considered.
I'm not an employment expert, but I believe that in the US, jobs of more than 30 hours per week come with benefits. I don't know if that's a legal requirement or just a custom.
US employers are not technically required to offer subsidized health insurance. Although, it is usually cheaper for employers with more than 50 full time (30 hours per week) or full time equivalent employees to offer the subsidy rather than paying the “shared responsibility payment”. See #1.
https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/questions-...
> Under these provisions, certain employers (called applicable large employers or ALEs) must either offer health coverage that is “affordable” and that provides “minimum value” to their full-time employees (and offer coverage to the full-time employees’ dependents), or potentially make an employer shared responsibility payment to the IRS, if at least one of their full-time employees receives a premium tax credit for purchasing individual coverage on a Health Insurance Marketplace (Marketplace), also called the Exchange.
Sure, but the idea usually is to work less hours for the same pay, if productivity allows for it. And many sectors have seen increased productivity, but the benefits went to shareholders instead of workers. Not advocating for communism or for seizing the means of production.
the idea is that if your productivity increases and you do 5 days of work in just 4 days you will be eaten alive by other companies based in countries where they are just as productive but decide to keep working 5 days instead.
Definitely. That's why this doesn't really work for stuff like mass market manufacturing where your productive output is proportional to how long workers spend on the assembly line, but more for the companies that are in the innovation and knowledge work business and have secured a lucrative niche, where no competitiveness is lost due to fewer hours, but that's a relatively small percentage of the total employment.
Why not communism? Seems pretty appealing.
> they will decrease your payment accordingly
Well of course, I don't think anyone expects to work 4 days and keep the full salary and the same accrual of holidays.
Actually, many of us do.
My company has been trying 4 day weeks twice a month since 2022 without salary decrease, the trial have been mostly conclusive, and we'll probably move forward and have 4 day weeks all weeks at some point. That's the stated goal anyway. The main difficulty is probably the fact that customers don't have 4 days and expect support all week. A partial answer to this is people have been able to pick 2 additional days off each month no questions asked, and not everybody like the same days off so it has been working out.
Studies show productivity is kept at the same level when companies switch to 4 day week, but people are happier and feel more rested (which is why there are more productive, there's probably also the fact you don't have to worry about life stuff as much at work since you can do many things that need to be done during the week during the off day). Since we produce the same amount, I don't see why the full salary should not be kept.
No, workers in Germany already have the right to work less hours in return for less pay.
The idea is to lower the default weekly working hours while keeping the same salary. If productivity slowly goes up over time, it should be possible.
Why not? Shouldn't technological advancements lead to less need for human labor?
You would be surprised how many people expect 40/5 to equal 32/4
Part time has gotten quite common in Germany. I work 20 hrs a day and that pays my bills.
Given that there is a shortage of workers, companies here increasingly have to compete for workers by means of improving working conditions and worker freedoms.
> I work 20 hrs a day and that pays my bills.
Paying rent and living expenses in Germany on only 20h work? Can I ask in which city? Can't be a big one I presume like Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, etc. where rent is expensive.
Or you earn a FAANG wage where 50% of that is 100% of a regular full time wage.
Dresden & My rent halved because of DINK. My half time wage is close to what minimum wage would be for a full-time worker.
Could be the 30 most influential companies in Germany.
It's like when FAANG comes up with a new cool shinny tool (MapReduce, React, Tensorflow). Even if not everyone is using it, your will see articles saying "The tech industry now uses [insert shinny tool]" even if most of the companies are running [insert old tool].
It could be, but it's not. According to LinkedIn, that one construction company they name has about 50 employees.
If it were the most influential companies in Germany, that "over 1,000 employees" number would've been orders of magnitude bigger.
A problem is that a substantial amount of people make more than enough money, and therefore they are looking at ways to have more free time. While at the same time there are not enough people to do all the work (in part due to retiring baby boomers).
There's a labor shortage so you'd think wages would go up, but if people make more per hour then that just means they're going to work less.
And migration is already at levels that gives fuel to right wing populists.
I've been working 3 day work weeks, Monday to Wednesday in batches of 2 weeks, since I have so much unspent leave. I noticed productivity during my work days is absolutely insane. I definitely get more done that when I slack my way through a 5 day week...
number6 hints at it, but fyi once you’re through your probation period (standard is 6 months) in Germany you can request a reduction in hours for a pro-rata reduction in pay and it’s quite difficult for the company to turn down the request because of it being enshrined in labour laws.
A few in my (tech) company have done this over the last while and it’s been great for me so far. Definitely wouldn’t say no to 100% salary for 80% time as in the trial but for those with developer salaries and the cost of living (where I live at least) I think most could live and save quite comfortably with the reduction, definitely recommend it.
I've been working a 4 day week (Fridays off, 100% salary) for a german consultancy and there's no way I'm going back to a 5 day week. I have never been this motivated to start work on Mondays and Sundays no longer feel dreadful as the weekend comes to a close. My sleep has improved and I have much more mental clarity because of just one additional day of rest.
Telekom in Hungary test drived with 150 then 300 employees but they ultimately failed to call it a success.
Takeaway message from this is to not let employees/teams pick which day they can claim as free.
Also, partially moving a company to this new scheme is asking for trouble.
Be bold and ignore what sounds "safe".
https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-telekom-iroda-mu...
https://telex-hu.translate.goog/gazdasag/2024/02/16/magyar-t...
I hope this experiment turns out great. But honestly, I think we should win this just because we want, not because it boosts productivity. AFAIK, when the five-day workweek became the norm, it was partly because of labor shortage and powerful unions Now labor shortage seems to be a problem too but we don't know if generative AI can solve this, and unions are declining. I wonder why unions have lost their popularity. I know some downsides of unions and companies' hard work for union busting, but I thought social media could have outweighed them.
There's something odd about the four-day week movement; they'e always unable to be honest in their headlines. Germany is not trialing a four-day work week.
> What It’s Really Like to Have a 4-Day Workweek
>Why The 4-Day Workweek Is Gaining Momentum
>Four-day workweek: Firms in UK make the move permanent after world’s biggest trial
There you go, a bunch of honest 4 day workweek headlines I found with the most basic google search. Now you can forever dispell yourself of the idea that dishonesty is particularly prevalent in headlines about 4 day workweeks.
> they'e always unable to be honest in their headlines
To call this “odd” implies that other news-sources are well known for their headlines accurately representing the body of their articles?
The first 6 words of the article clarify it, it's not like it's buried. Clickbait, yes, but hardly unusual or indicative of dishonesty in the movement.
The website ("Welcome to the Jungle") seems to be a recruitment/media company, are they some sort of grassroots movement for "four-day week" but they hide this fact?
Has anyone tried 4x10s (so 4 day work week but same pay)? I floated it with my direct coworker and we came to an agreement, but my boss had some level of skepticism so I haven't yet proceeded.
The last couple weeks I've been "quiet trialing" it, working Friday morning to finish things up and then keeping the afternoon light. It really helps me to come into Monday refreshed, raring to go like I am after a good vacation.
I think 4x10 is quite the opposite in productivity because towards the end of each day, due to being tired, productivity would drop off. But maybe it’s a matter of getting used to the new rhythm and that would work out too.
YMMV, but I often find myself in a weird state where it's easier for me to "hunker down" and do a couple more hours of work (because I'm already in the flow), but I'm too exhausted from work to do personal projects around the house...
If I'm really feeling exhausted in the afternoon, I'm really good at taking a 25 minute "power nap", my mind goes from slightly foggy to crystal clear, and if I take it well before 5pm my sleep for the night is typically not impacted at all. It's taken some training to get to the point that I can quickly shift into sleep and then snap out of it, but it's amazingly effective.
The company I work at introduced half-day Fridays. Its nice to have some time to do chores and things that are more inconvenient on a weekend, though the downside is we are more rushed to finish up our sprints.
I think the second half of a Friday, especially an end-of-sprint Friday, is quite lackadaisical anyway, so its probably a good bang-for-buck perk for the company.
Still WFH is better
Why not both. :-)
With current trends we'll get neither. More like 6 day plus mandatory office, judging by news and job listings.
You should try that when things are going well, not after purchasing power has collapsed 10s of percents over <5 years and 80% of <35yo s cannot afford to buy a flat.