<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/20/four-day-work-week-six-weeks-holidays-vacation-australia-boost-improve-productivity>
"One of the ideas that has captured many peoples’ attention amid the flurry of
proposals ahead of the economic roundtable is the Australian Council of Trade
Unions’ vision of a four-day working week.
The peak union body argued that working less could actually be productivity
enhancing, although the studies behind those claims aren’t too rigorous.
While many Australians would certainly welcome a three-day weekend, Jim
Chalmers has made it clear that working towards a national four-day working
week is not on the government’s agenda, while reaffirming Labor’s commitment to
flexible work.
Employer groups have been scathing, and it’s not likely to be a big discussion
point on day two of the three-day roundtable.
Clearly not on board with the treasurer’s “open hearts and open minds” approach
to this week’s talkfest, the Australian Industry Group’s chief executive, Innes
Willox, called the four-day working week idea “another populist,
anti-productivity thought bubble”.
Willox calculated that at the current dismal rate of productivity growth it
would take 26 years to get to the point where we could drop a day’s work
without going backwards economically.
But as the ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, explained to the
Conversation’s
Michelle Grattan: the labour movement doesn’t expect a revolution in the
working week to happen overnight.
“To be clear, we weren’t asking for a change to the workplace laws for the
government to do something,” McManus said.
“We were raising this in the context of a discussion both around productivity
and around AI as an important part of the distribution of the benefits of
productivity growth or, for that matter, productivity growth out of less jobs,
out of AI.”
The longer arc of Australian history has been towards shorter working weeks and
longer holidays. But that progress stopped a few decades back, settling on the
current set-up of a 38-hour full-time job, two-day weekend and four weeks’ paid
leave.
But there has been progress in other ways (assuming “progress” is working less
– many believe hard work is an end in and of itself)."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
