Japan's Panasonic offers staff four day work week

Robert Besser
13 Jan 2022, 22:50 GMT+10

Panasonic said it will offer its Japanese workers a four-day work week, in a bid to improve productivity and attract better workers
The move comes after the Japanese government made recommendations to private employers in 2021, which included a shorter working week
Despite having a reputation in the U.S. as a workaholic culture, Japanese workers actually work fewer hours than American workers

TOKYO, Japan: Panasonic said it will offer its Japanese workers a four-day work week, in a bid to improve productivity and attract better workers.

The move comes after the Japanese government made recommendations to private employers in 2021, which included a shorter working week.

Companies that have sought to put in place a shorter work week have found no loss of productivity, in general, said officials.

Despite having a reputation in the U.S. as a workaholic culture, Japanese workers actually work fewer hours than American workers, according to the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Among the OECD, the U.S. ranked 11th for most hours worked by the average worker, while Japan ranked 26th.

Americans have been promised a shorter work week for generations, and economic experts in the 1960s predicted that robots would perform the majority of work and Americans would be working only 16 hours per week.

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