Scotland to trial a four-day working week with no loss of wages for employees

Scotland will be trialing a four-day working week without cutting hours or wages across a number of sectors, it has been announced today.

IPPR Scotland (the Institute for Public Policy Research) has said these reduced hours would be handed to workers as annual leave entitlement, as more public holidays, or as parental leave for those who qualify.

The IPPR suggested a Low Hours Commission to help drive this forward, and a Scottish trial across sectors with the aim to see how this works in non-office employment, on lower pay, and among those with condensed or part-time hours.

@glenncarstenspeters / Unsplash

Its report, obtained by the BBC, also suggests that there is a need not only to cap maximum hours, but to put a minimum-hours floor on employment.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon had previously promised to provide funding for Scottish companies to offer staff a four-day working week, as per The Independent.

She said: “Before the pandemic struck, many people were already worried about work-life balance. We want to do more to support people to achieve a better balance and help businesses employ as many people as possible.

“As part of that, we will establish a £10m fund to support willing companies to explore and pilot the benefits of a four-day working week.”

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This comes after Iceland reported that their own four-day working week trial was an ‘overwhelming success.’

The trials, run by Reykjavík City Council and the Icelandic national government, took place across four years from 2015 to 2019, and saw more than 2,500 workers take part, which amounts to about 1% of Iceland’s working population.

The workplaces taking part moved from a forty hour working week to a thirty-six or thirty-five hour working week with no pay cut for employers – and, remarkably, it was found that, despite the shorter hours, their productivity was at an all time high.