British companies involved in the world's largest trial of a four-day working week have mostly decided to retain it in what campaigners hailed on Tuesday as a breakthrough for a better work-life balance.
BRITAIN - Employees at 61 companies worked an average of 34 hours across four days between June-December 2022, while earning their existing salary. Of those, 56 companies, or 92%, opted to continue like that, 18 of them permanently. A number of participants said job retention and recruitment had improved during the trial.
ITALY - Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo last year offered staff the option of a four-day working week on the same salary from this January, the first such move by a major Italian employer. Intesa said it was looking at shortening the working week to curb its rising electricity bills. GERMANY - A pay deal agreed last April for tens of thousands of workers at Germany's public-sector banks also included a one-hour reduction to a 38-hour working week from 2024. Germany has been a forerunner in adapting working weeks, either as part of wage-bargaining or to avoid redundancies in economic slowdowns. Bosses at car giant Volkswagen said back in the 1990s that a four-day week was hurting competitiveness and pushed for it to be increased.
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