Does Sweden Really Have a Six Hour Day?
Can you reduce working hours without affecting productivity?
There have been reports that those radical Swedes have decided to reduce the working day to just six hours because, it has been claimed, productivity does not suffer. Before you all rush to the Swedish job pages this is not quite the case – but there have been trials in Sweden to test whether you can shorten people’s working hours without having an effect on output. Tim Harford talks to our Swedish correspondent Keith Moore about what the trials have found. He also speaks to professor John Pencavel, Emeritus Professor of Economics, at Stanford University, and finds that reducing working hours may not be as radical idea as it first appears.
(Photo: A business man carries a black briefcase)
Last on
Broadcasts
- Fri 30 Dec 201619:50GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Fri 30 Dec 201620:50GMTBBC World Service UK DAB/Freeview, Online, Europe and the Middle East, Australasia & Americas and the Caribbean only
- Fri 30 Dec 201621:50GMTBBC World Service South Asia & East Asia only
- Mon 2 Jan 201702:50GMTBBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Mon 2 Jan 201703:50GMTBBC World Service UK DAB/Freeview, Europe and the Middle East & Online only
- Mon 2 Jan 201704:50GMTBBC World Service East Asia & South Asia only
- Mon 2 Jan 201705:50GMTBBC World Service Australasia
- Mon 2 Jan 201707:50GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa & Europe and the Middle East only

