These Places Already Tried a 32-Hour Workweek. Here’s What Happened. - Newsweek

A proposal to make the 32-hour workweek the new federal standard is back before Congress, renewing debate over whether Americans could work fewer hours without taking a pay cut.

Last week, independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Representative Mark Takano of California reintroduced legislation that would gradually reduce the federal standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 while protecting workers' existing pay and benefits. The bill would change federal overtime law, effectively making it more expensive for employers to routinely require covered workers to put in more than 32 hours.

"A 32-hour workweek is not a radical idea. What's radical is that, despite an explosion in technology and productivity over the last 50 years, millions of workers are working longer hours for lower wages while nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent," said Sanders, arguing that automation and the proliferation of artificial intelligence should give workers more of their time back.

"That has got to change. It's time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow workers and their families to enjoy a better quality of life. It's time to pass this bill," he added.

The concept of the four-day working week is not new, with trials in various countries having involved thousands of workers across dozens of companies. Many of those trials reported improvements in burnout, well-being and staff retention, and a number of employers chose to keep schedules with reduced hours after the trials ended. Others encountered problems with staffing, customer coverage and fitting the model around different types of work and industries.

Though the proposal faces an uncertain future in Congress, the experiences of employers in other countries that have already tried shorter working weeks offer a clearer picture of how reducing hours can work in practice, and where it can run into problems.

While a four-day workweek is not mandated nationally anywhere in the world, employers in a number of countries have already tested shorter working weeks, often while keeping workers on full pay.

The trials have largely focused on whether companies can reduce working hours without hurting productivity, while also examining effects on staff retention, burnout and well-being. Results have varied, but several large pilots have led many participating employers to make shorter working weeks permanent or adopt at least some of the policies used in the trials.

One of the largest trials took place in the U.K. in 2022, when 61 companies covering about 2,900 workers reduced working hours for six months without a pay cut. Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that 71 percent of employees reported lower burnout, sick days fell 65 percent, and staff resignations dropped 57 percent. Company revenues, meanwhile, remained broadly stable among firms that supplied comparable data.

At the end of the trial, 56 of the 61 employers said they planned to continue with a four-day week, and 18 immediately made the change permanent. A later follow-up found at least 54 were still using a four-day week.

In 2024, 45 organizations in Germany ran a six-month trial of a four-day workweek, across sectors such as manufacturing, health care, IT and professional services. Employers were allowed to design their own reduced-hours model, meaning not all moved to a strict 32-hour week. Researchers at the University of Münster found employees worked about four fewer hours a week on average and turnover and profits remained stable overall. Workers also reported improvements in life satisfaction, sleep and physical activity.

The trial was not without difficulties, however. Two large organizations dropped out because of economic problems or a lack of internal support, and researchers found no clear improvement in absenteeism. However, a 2026 follow-up found 70 percent of participating organizations were still using some form of reduced working time, although some had adopted more flexible arrangements rather than a fixed four-day week.

Portugal's government backed a 2023 trial involving 41 companies and more than 1,000 workers. Employers used a mixture of four-day weeks and nine-day fortnights, with average working time falling from roughly 41.6 hours to 36.5 hours a week. Workers reported better mental and physical health and less exhaustion, while 80 percent of managers said the change had been financially neutral.

Employers did report difficulties around holidays, client demands and managing workloads in fewer hours. Even so, among the 21 companies in the coordinated portion of the pilot, only four returned to a five-day week. The rest either extended the trial or adopted some form of a shorter working week.

According to Rita Fontinha, an associate professor of strategic human resources at Henley Business School in the U.K, the study also found that "women attribute a higher value to the 4-day week." She also noted that lower-income workers "who have less flexibility in managing their working hours and fewer resources to buy services to free their time" valued the reduced timetable more.

A 2023 trial included 27 South African companies and one company in Botswana, where employees generally kept their full pay while companies reduced working time and reorganized workloads. Researchers found a 57 percent reduction in burnout, 36 percent had reduced fatigue, and 35 percent reported better mental well-being.

Of 21 organizations that participated, 13 found their revenue increased over the course of the trial period, and about 92 percent of participating businesses said they intended to continue with the model.

However, the trial also found companies tended to struggle when they had little preparation time, applied the policy only to certain teams or had senior managers who continued working traditional schedules.

Whether a 32-hour week can work across the U.S. workforce will depend on the type of business, according to experts, with office-based companies generally having more room to cut wasted time than employers that need continuous staffing.

Jay Aldebert, the creator of the Profit by Design Methodology and chief growth officer at International Services, told Newsweek that businesses such as software companies may be able to reduce meetings and improve efficiency enough to offset some lost hours, while other employers—including hospitals, restaurants, retailers and manufacturers—have different requirements and may not be best suited to a compressed week.

"A four-day week can absolutely work for some businesses," Aldebert said. "The mistake is assuming that because it works for one type of company, it can be applied to the entire economy."

For businesses that still need the same level of coverage, maintaining weekly pay while reducing hours would likely mean hiring additional staff, paying overtime, shortening operating hours or raising prices, Aldebert said, and those costs could be particularly difficult for smaller businesses with narrow profit margins.

Aldebert also warned of unintended consequences for workers if companies respond by demanding more output during fewer hours, slowing hiring or increasing automation.

"One risk is that we turn five days of work into four days of stress," he said. "If making the model work requires higher prices, fewer employees, reduced hours or asking the same workers to carry a heavier workload, then the cost did not disappear. It just moved somewhere else."

Robert Bird, a professor of business law at the University of Connecticut, said the prospect of a working week with reduced hours is tenable in the U.S., given that working hours have already been reduced during the country's history.

"There is nothing inevitable or special about the five-day, 40-hour workweek. A few centuries ago, a common workweek was six days and 96 hours a week," he told Newsweek. "Labor union protests were instrumental in lowering the standard workweek over decades. By 1920, union members worked a 48-hour week, and by the mid-20th century, the five-day, 40-hour workweek was widespread."

"A 32-hour standard workweek is feasible, but it will not be as simple as flipping a switch," Bird continued. "Scheduling will have to be changed. Logistics will need to be modified. Employers will have to coordinate time to ensure necessary coverage to meet customer needs."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Alabama Jackson and Shakeema Edwards.