Finland to introduce four-day working week and six hour days under new prime minister plans
6 January 2020, 07:09 | Updated: 6 January 2020, 07:11
Finland is set to introduce a four-day working week and six hour days under new plans.
The new Finnish prime minister aims to introduce a flexible working week for the whole country.
Sanna Marin’s planned schedule involves a four-day-week and six-hour working day.
The 34-year-old - who’s the second youngest head of government in the world - said it would allow workers to spend more time with their families.
Like the UK, in Finland employees usually work for eight hours per day, five days per week.
Sanna has said: “I believe people deserve to spend more time with their families, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of life, such as culture.
“This could be the next step for us in working life.”
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The mother-of-one became prime minister in December 2019 and leads a centre-left coalition with five other parties, all of which are headed by women.
Minister of education Li Andersson, who is the leader of the Left Alliance, has quickly endorsed the idea, saying: “It is important to allow Finnish citizens to work less.
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“It is not a question of governing with a feminine style but offering help and keeping promises to voters.”
Shorter working weeks have been trialled across the world in plenty of different countries, with neighbouring Sweden having a six-hour-day in place since 2015.
Results have shown that employees are happier, wealthier and more productive, as they are still fully paid.
Meanwhile, a legal company in New Zealand, Perpetual Guardian introduced a four-day work week back in 2018, with founder Andrew Barnes saying the results were remarkable.
He told The AM Show last year: "Our productivity has gone up, our profits have gone up, our staff retention has improved, our stress levels have dropped".
In November, Microsoft Japan also introduced a three-day weekend for their employees.
The results showed that productivity went up by 39.9%, with workers happier and more productive when working shorter weeks.
