RIYADH — Saudi Arabia is considering a three-day weekend to shorten the work week, local media reports have quoted sources from the Kingdom’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development as saying.
The Saudi Ministry is reportedly analyzing the work structure to enhance job creation and make the labor market more appealing to domestic and foreign investors.
If Saudi Arabia follows suit, it would be the second Arab country to institute a shortened workweek.
At present, the Kingdom applies a system of five working days and two days off per week, which is Friday and Saturday.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the first Arab nation to adopt a four-day workweek, with government workers and academic institutions now having Fridays off after noon.
In Sharjah, workers enjoy a three-day weekend each week, and a government study conducted about a year after introducing the four-day workweek indicated a 90 percent increase in job performance, employee contentment, and mental health.
Apart from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, many countries worldwide have adopted the four-day workweek or are experimenting with it.
Many nations make it a permanent option
By late 2022, more than two dozen countries had conducted experiments and pilot projects to determine the feasibility of a four-day workweek. As a result, several countries have made it a permanent option.
Australia has over 20 businesses that have adopted the four-day workweek, while Austria has the sixth shortest average workweek globally, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at 35.5 hours.
Employees in Belgium have the option of switching to a four-day workweek, which consists of four 10-hour days. As part of the 4 Day Week Global project, dozens of Canadian businesses are trying a four-day workweek.
Denmark has the world’s second-shortest average workweek (33 hours), according to a recent OECD assessment. Germany has one of the world’s shortest workweeks (34 hours), and the country’s largest trade union is pushing for an even shorter workweek.
Over 2,500 Icelanders participated in the most extensive pilot of a four-day workweek (35-36 hours) in Iceland, while 17 Irish companies experimented with a four-day workweek for six months in 2022. The Japanese government recommended that businesses in the country allow employees to work four days per week instead of the standard five in 2021.
Citizens of the Netherlands now have the legal right to reduce their workweek to part-time unless there is a “substantial business reason” for not doing so, while a recent OECD study found that the average workweek in Norway was the third shortest in the world (33.6 hours).
Scotland’s government has committed $12.2 million to support business pilots of a four-day workweek, and many businesses in South Africa have announced plans to begin testing out a four-day workweek in 2023, with no pay cut for employees.
The Spanish government has proposed a $70 million program to ease the transition to a four-day workweek for businesses, while a study by the OECD ranks Switzerland as having the world’s fourth-shortest working week on average (34.6 hours).
Between June and December 2022, more than 3,000 workers at 60 different companies in the United Kingdom participated in a six-month trial of a four-day workweek.
Over 30 businesses have also committed to a four-day workweek pilot in the United States.
Variants of four-day workweek
Many four-day workweek pilot programs utilize the 100-80-100 model, which aims for total compensation, 80 percent efficiency, and 100 percent output.
There are various versions of the four-day workweek, with the most popular being a 32-hour schedule spread across four days. Some programs adopt the 4/10 rule, which entails 40 hours of work distributed over four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days, reducing worker stress.
Other variations of the four-day workweek include 38 or 36 hours per week, and some replace Friday with Monday as the additional day off.
Additionally, certain companies use a skewed schedule, with half of the staff receiving Friday off and the other half Monday.
Early data on the four-day workweek are positive in many cases, as reducing the average workweek length helps improve work-life balance, reduces stress levels, and increases happiness among residents of hard-working countries and overburdened governments.