The push for a four-day working week will be discussed an Economic Reform Roundtable this week as support from unions to deliver improved productivity under the model grows.
The Economic Reform Roundtable to be held from at Parliament House from August 19 to 21.
It will focus on three areas, making the economy more productive, building resilience in the face of global uncertainty, and strengthening the budget and making it more sustainable.
At the roundtable, the Australian Council of Trade Unions ACTU will argue that reducing working hours is the key to workers benefitting from productivity gains and technological advances.
The ACTU will reference a peer-reviewed study recently published in Nature Human Behaviour that found a four-day work week boosts performance, reduces burnout, and improves employee health and retention.
The study examined 2,896 employees across 141 organisations in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Another study conducted at Swinburne University in 2023 of ten Australian companies trialling the four-day week resulted in productivity being higher at seventy per cent of the firms, and the same as pre-trial levels in the remaining thirty per cent.
The ACTU will advocate for workplaces to take on the 100:80:100 mode at the roundtable.
This will mean workers can retain 100 per-cent of their pay, while working 80 per-cent of their current hours, as long as they can maintain 100 per-cent of their productivity and output.
‘Productivity in the Real World’ a recent paper by Dr Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work showed the scale of the gap between productivity growth and wage growth.
Dr Stanford found that if wages had grown at the same rate as productivity since 2000, average wages would be around 18 per cent higher or about $350 per week than they are today.
ACTU President Michele O’Neil said shorter working hours are good for both workers and employers.
“They deliver improved productivity and allow working people to live happier, healthier and more balanced lives,” she said.
“Unions want all Australians to benefit from higher productivity not just those with money and power.
“Productivity growth does not automatically translate to higher living standards.
“If that were the case over the past twenty-five years, the average worker today would be around $350 a week better off.
“For workers in some sectors, shorter working hours can be delivered through moving to a four-day work week.
“For other people, this could be achieved through other ways, such as more time off or fairer rosters.”
Ms O’Neil said models for reducing working hours include adding more rostered days off, increasing annual leave, and redesigning rosters to provide increased predictability, security, and work-life balance but they had to be specific to the industry in which they were applied.
But in an interview with Sky News on August 13, Ms O’Neil admitted that it could be bad for business.
“In retail, it might be that there’s more people working,” she said.
“That’s not a bad thing in terms of more employment.
“We’re not saying to anyone that you close the shop.”
When the host Tom Connell asked, ‘but that’s bad for business, isn’t it,’ Ms O’Neil agreed.
“Of course, but this is why they’ve got to organise this properly with workers,” she said.
The CV Independent would like to hear the thoughts of employers and business owners about the proposed four day working week on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ClarenceValleyIndependent.
This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 20 August 2025.
