Partner Article

Is a shorter working week more productive?

The New Economics Foundation has announced that reducing the working week to 30 hours would not only be favourable to employees but has the potential to be economically valuable.

They explain that today’s world is full of opportunities which working Britons are not able to experience due to a week consumed by work. Their argument is to decrease working hours instead of increasing wages in the hope of creating more jobs, improving health and encouraging employees’ social life.

Other western countries are already demonstrating that the well known saying ‘time is money’ is a myth; a 30 hour week has proven successful in Belgium and Netherlands while in Germany an average 35 hour week has generated the world’s fourth largest economy.

Furthermore, Germany’s unemployment rate is 2% less than that recorded in the UK and the US, therefore suggesting that this shorter working week has the ability to help the economy and encourage more people into work.

According to statistics, over 25% of reported sickness can be assigned to problems in the workplace – with this in mind economists are positive that a shorter working week will lead to less illness in the office and greater productivity. By reducing working hours it is believed that stress and career pressure will also be reduced, allowing men and women more time to reach a healthy work / life balance.

Article written by Paul Drew, marketing director at Pareto, and reproduced from employersjobs.com’s blog.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by employersjobs.com .