A Four-day Working Week

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 19 January 2022.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:02, 19 January 2022

Thank you for the comments. The Minister for Social Justice is leading on this as a policy area of work, and my officials will be working alongside hers in doing so. I think it's worth pointing out that we're interested in a variety of different forms of more flexible working, both the place that people work, the hours that people work and how they work those hours. Now, some businesses are already doing some of this. We know that some countries are already piloting different measures. Some people manage to compress their hours into a shorter number of days without losing any hours or pay; other people are looking at working fewer hours, and whether you can actually get a more productive workforce as a result.

Our officials are aware that we're expecting further reports around the four-day week, including the work that Autonomy are undertaking, and I understand some of that work is being done with the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. So, we remain actively interested in this area of policy formulation, but as I say, if there are businesses that want to trial a four-day working week, we would be interested in having a properly constructive conversation about how that would fit into the work we're already doing, whether we could support them, and how then we take on board the learning that comes from those, to see whether it could be applied more generally, whether in public services or, indeed, the wider economy, but to work alongside our partners in doing so. I should also point out my officials are in contact with the Scottish Government as they themselves are looking to implement a pilot in this area too, as I'm sure the Member's aware.