I wrote this piece for the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia following a presentation I gave along with other researchers and members of Four Day Week Global.
The intuitive understanding that productivity will rise with a switch over to a four day week, is well founded. Adam Smith highlighted the loss of productivity caused by the down time that occurred when a worker had to begin their work efforts over multiple times. The more times this happened the lower the productivity. Now what has changed from the 1990s that saw labour productivity fall? Can it be the transit times to and from work? If a worker had to spend longer hours just travelling to and from work, then labour unit productivity may fall. A four day working week can reduce this by compacting the working week so as to minimise the adverse affects of long transit times to and from work.
The intuitive understanding that productivity will rise with a switch over to a four day week, is well founded. Adam Smith highlighted the loss of productivity caused by the down time that occurred when a worker had to begin their work efforts over multiple times. The more times this happened the lower the productivity. Now what has changed from the 1990s that saw labour productivity fall? Can it be the transit times to and from work? If a worker had to spend longer hours just travelling to and from work, then labour unit productivity may fall. A four day working week can reduce this by compacting the working week so as to minimise the adverse affects of long transit times to and from work.