A new study has found that almost three-quarters of Labour voters would support the government introducing a four-day working week with no loss of pay.
Polling by Survation, commissioned by The Autonomy Institute, has found 72% of people that voted Labour in last month’s general election support the government moving the country to a shorter working week by 2030. The study, which polled 2,048 adults, also found support for the the scheme across the political spectrum, with 59% of Reform voters also backing a four-day week.
The majority of Labour voters polled (66%) also supported further trials of the four-day working week in the public sector, with South Cambridgeshire District Council becoming the first UK council to test a shorter week in 2023.
Several countries and companies have seen successful trials of the shorter working week, with research finding at least 54 of the 61 companies that took part in the first UK pilot in 2022 maintained the four-day week a year-and-a-half later. Campaigners have now announced a second UK four-day week pilot to take place in November.
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Campaigners for the shorter working week have called the model “long overdue”, claiming “millions of workers in Britain are burnt out, stressed, overworked and in desperate need of a better work-life balance”.
“In the UK, we work some of the longest full-time working hours in in Europe, we have done for decades, and we also have one of the least productive economies,” Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, told the Big Issue.