92% Of UK Companies That Tested 4-Day Work Week Decide To Adopt IT Permanently
Tne Next Web, March 14th, 2023
If you lived in the 19th century and worked in manufacturing, you'd be looking at a working week of between 60 to 90 hours, according to research from the University of Groningen.
These days, thankfully, things look a bit brighter. While working weeks differ across the EU-France famously has a 35-hour week-in general European staff can't work more than 48 hours per week on average, including overtime.
This means that we are now working between 50% and 125% less than we would have been in the 1800s-and the better news is that workers' conditions have continued to improve.
Weekly working hours took a dive following World War I, when US car manufacturer Henry Ford famously introduced the five-day, 40-hour work week in 1926. It caught on, and is the foundation upon which most contemporary workers have built their careers upon.
Now though, the times they are a-changin'-again.