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August 3, 2025 • 13 mins

If you feel like you’re working like crazy, but getting nowhere fast, you’re far from alone. It turns out that Australians work many more hours, per week, than our counterparts in Germany and Japan.

But a new study has shown the benefits of a four-day work week. 

Today, economics writer Millie Muroi, on why the government keeps going on about productivity. And whether a shorter work week, which has already been adopted in other countries, could be heading our way.

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Episode Transcript

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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday,
August 4th. If you feel like you're working like crazy
but getting nowhere fast, you're far from alone. It turns
out that Australians work many more hours per week than

(00:23):
our counterparts in Germany and Japan. But a new study
has shown the benefits of a four day work week. Today,
economics writer Emily Maroy on why the government keeps going
on about productivity and whether a shorter workweek, which has
already been adopted in other countries, could be heading our way. Okay, Emily,

(00:49):
I am so happy you're here, because I'm hoping you
can help us understand why we keep hearing Federal Treasurer
Jim Chalmers constantly talking about productivity. Most people I know,
they're working their butts off for years on end. They
feel like they're on a hamster wheel. What is happening?

S2 (01:05):
So productivity has actually been on the agenda for a
few years now. The reserve Bank, for example, as the
inflation surge was happening, was saying, you know, one of
the medicines for tackling these price pressures was to figure
out how to get more with the stuff that we
already have now. Chalmers has ramped it up a bit,
saying that the focus of his second term is to

(01:26):
boost productivity. And later this month he'll be hosting a
productivity roundtable. So he'll be bringing in a bunch of researchers,
people from unions, industry to brainstorm ideas and come to
an agreement about how we can actually boost productivity and
reduce those working hours as well.

S1 (01:43):
Okay, so.

S3 (01:43):
Tell us what this actually means.

S1 (01:45):
Though. Like, we know economic nerds, no offense. Love talking
about productivity. But what is it? How is it measured?
Why is it important?

S2 (01:52):
I'm always happy to claim the title of economics nerd.
So productivity is essentially, put very simply, making more stuff
with less work. Basically, for every hour of work that
you put in and the resources that you're given, you're
able to pump out more, whether that's coffees, Tim Tams
or cars. Now that's important because we all know resources

(02:13):
are scarce. We don't have endless supply of workers or
coffee beans or energy. So the more efficient we can be,
the more stuff we can make, or the less hours
we have to work to get that same outcome, which
helps us lift those living standards, because we're either getting
more for the work that we put in, or we're
getting to reduce the amount of work that we're doing
and spend more time doing the things that we actually love.

S1 (02:35):
Okay, so before we get into the idea that maybe
we should be working less days a week, which I
am incredibly excited about, maybe just take us through how
hard we are actually working in Australia? I know for
many of us, the work seems endless, but you've actually
crunched the numbers. You had it in a feature just
over the weekend, and it sounds like maybe we are
actually working harder than other countries are we?

S2 (02:57):
Australians do work harder than quite a lot of other people.
So according to the OECD, Australians worked an average of
1645 Hundred and 45 hours in 2023, which is just
around 32 hours a week. Now, that's much more than
the 26 hours a week worked by Germans, and longer
than the 31 hours worked in Japan, which we know

(03:17):
is fairly notorious for its intense work culture. Americans still
work a few more hours than us at an average
of about 35 hours a week, but we also had
some research by the Australian Institute Centre for Future Work,
which found in 2022, Australian workers put in four hours
and 20 minutes of unpaid overtime a week. That doesn't
sound like too much. It sounds about reasonable until you

(03:40):
add it up and you realise that it's six weeks
of unpaid overtime, a year that is almost, you know,
that is more than the amount of leave that a
lot of people get a year as well.

S1 (03:50):
Okay, that really displeased me. I'm not going to say
that was a little bit triggering, for lack of a
better word when I read that. But tell us about
working less, because we know that this really quite significant
study has just come out in a peer reviewed, very
respectable journal which has studied the four day working week
and Australians were part of this. So tell us about
this and about what the benefits are of working a

(04:12):
four day work week.

S2 (04:14):
Yeah. So the study was in the Nature Human Behaviour Journal,
and it's the biggest study to date on that four
day work week. It found that the four day work
week essentially boosts physical and mental health, reduces burnout, boosts
job satisfaction. And it looked at almost 3000 employees across
141 organisations in six countries. So that included Australia as well,

(04:38):
showing essentially a lot of those metrics people improved in.
And productivity also stayed around the same level as well.
It basically found that reducing those work hours. So taking
on the four day work week means that people tend
to have better outcomes. So they're happier. They have better
sort of mental physical health. They have more time to

(04:59):
sort of recharge, spend on other things like family. And
it also found that actually people are still just as
productive as well as having those benefits. We also know
that generally having those better work hours, better work life
balance means that companies are actually able to retain their
workers better as well, because they don't get burnt out,
they don't quit. And so there are a lot of

(05:20):
benefits to having that four day workweek.

S1 (05:24):
And so.

S3 (05:24):
Were you actually surprised.

S1 (05:25):
By that finding that productivity did not go down during
that four day workweek?

S2 (05:30):
I think for me, it wasn't surprising in that even
in my personal experience, I find, you know, when you're
well rested, when you have the time to reconnect with friends,
take care of everything at home, you are able to
come to work without having that sort of baggage in
your head or feeling really tired. So personally, I wasn't
super surprised, but it was reassuring to have sort of
a big study that backs that finding as well.

S1 (05:54):
We'll be right back.

S3 (05:55):
And so have any companies here.

S1 (05:57):
Actually trialled a four day working week and if so,
how is it working here.

S2 (06:01):
There are a few. So Bupa, the health insurer as
well as a few others. Ikea I think is another one.
Unilever also has trialled the sort of reduced working hours arrangement. Now, unfortunately,
two of them have scrapped the trial. They didn't say,
you know, it doesn't work. A lot of them have
actually said Bupa, for example, have said, you know, we

(06:24):
did see the benefits of this, you know, better productivity,
better outcomes from people. But they just said sometimes there's
less flexibility, which means, you know, we need to make
sure that we can cover when people are taking on
that four day work week, for example. So we need
to maintain that ability to serve customers and fulfil all
those other roles. But then companies like Ikea have actually

(06:46):
held on to it. So they say it gives them
a bit of a competitive edge because their workers are
not getting burnt out, they're not leaving the company. And so, yeah,
there are a few companies that have been trialling it
here in Australia. Some of them have adopted it for
the longer term as well.

S1 (07:02):
I'm just wondering, do you think that there's something in
our culture like we're sort of lagging behind, I guess,
because I know that apparently the concept of a four
day work week has been discussed for more than 50
years and other countries have trialled it right, like the
UK has trialled it and other countries have instituted it
like Iceland and Japan. So are we a bit behind?

S2 (07:20):
I guess in some ways you could say we are
a bit behind. I think we're a bit slower to
sort of adopt those newer ideas. There is also a
cultural element. So I was speaking to a real estate
agent in Sydney, so he's 24. He says that he
works from I believe it's 7 a.m. until about 6 p.m.
every weekday, and then on Saturdays. He also basically works

(07:43):
from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., which leaves him very
little time to socialise. He says basically the only thing
he does is hit the gym. And so, you know,
I asked him, well, could you work less hours? And
he says, yes, he's earning, you know, very comfortable income.
He could work less, but he just chooses not to
because he's really keen to reach that next level, build

(08:04):
up those savings. And he was interestingly saying his extended
family in Italy. So his cousin only works about three
months a year. So that's a big contrast. And he
was saying, you know, part of it comes down to
the cultural difference. So in Australia there is that ambition,
especially young people want to get ahead. But then at
the same time, he says cost of living is a

(08:26):
big factor as well. So it's not just about, you know,
we want to improve our living standards. He also said,
you know, Sydney has the second worst property market in
the world. So because of those cost of living pressures,
in order to keep up with that, he has to
work longer hours as well.

S1 (08:41):
Okay. And you mentioned right at the top that the
government's about to host a productivity roundtable that's in August.
So is a four day work week something that our
government is considering backing?

S2 (08:52):
The government hasn't really said. It's something they're open to.
They have said, you know, we're not ruling in or
ruling out any ideas. And Anthony Albanese has said anything
that has broad backing he's willing to sort of really consider.
But I think a four day work week will be
a tricky one for the government, especially coming straight out
of that roundtable to say, you know, we're going to

(09:12):
go ahead with this. That's quite a big call. Cole.
And so we might have to rely on those private
companies sort of starting taking on those trials. And then
as more companies take it on, perhaps the government will
consider it a little bit more as well.

S1 (09:27):
Don't you think a lot of people, you know, they'll
read your feature and they'll think, yeah, I'm working too hard. Like,
is that the upshot, Millie? Are we just working too
hard for too little benefit? Like, should we either be
getting paid more or just working less and being more
productive in those hours? Like, is that what this study
shows we can do?

S2 (09:45):
Well, interestingly, the Productivity Commission put out some research in June,
and it found that over the past few decades, Australians
have basically traded in any productivity increases for more spending,
more income, rather than more leisure time. So it found
that essentially, compared to the last 45 years, we could

(10:07):
have actually reduced our working hours by about almost a half,
so by 45%. And that would have helped us or
that would have let us maintain the same living standards
that we had 45 years ago. So if you were
happy to live with the same living standards that we
had back then, we could be working almost half the

(10:27):
hours that we do now. The thing is that Australians
have chosen to work more hours or not to reduce
their hours in exchange for being able to have better
quality cars, better quality services. And so it is a
bit of a trade off, but we've tended to yeah.
Favour I guess higher incomes, higher consumption.

S1 (10:47):
And when did we make those choices. Like this might
be a really simple question, but I'm thinking when did
we collectively or individually make that choice? It must have
happened incrementally over time. But when did we actually give
away this free time that we could have had in
exchange for more money to pay for our increasingly, you know,
expensive properties?

S2 (11:05):
Yeah, I guess it becomes kind of the norm to chase,
I guess, higher quality things. Everyone around us, if they're
chasing higher quality things, it's going to become, I guess,
the sort of norm. And so I think, yeah, over
time it's just become something that everyone sort of accepts.
It's a bit of a cultural sort of pursuit of,
I guess, higher consumption and better quality things.

S1 (11:27):
But does this just happen incrementally, like when we are
negotiating award wages with our employers? Is it because over
the years, over the decades, we've been barracking for higher
pay as opposed to less work hours, essentially?

S2 (11:40):
Yeah, I think there are a few kind of places
where I think people have chosen, you know, flexible work
or flexible hours over those sort of wage increases. But
I think over time we have tended to push more
for wage increases rather than reduce working hours.

S1 (11:59):
What are you thinking, Millie? Four day work week. Is
it for you?

S2 (12:03):
I would love to clock off this week and not
have to work Friday, but unfortunately, I think the four
day work week is still a little bit of time away.
So yeah, Sam, unfortunately I think I'm stuck with the
five day workweek for now.

S1 (12:17):
Not yet for us. Well, I tell you what I'm
very looking forward to seeing what you report on when
this productivity roundtable happens in August. So thank you so
much for your time.

S2 (12:27):
Thanks so much, Sam.

S1 (12:35):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh towers,
with technical assistance by Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is
Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To
listen to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow
the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen
to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to

(12:58):
support independent journalism, visit the page or. Subscribe and to
stay up to date, sign up to our Morning Edition
newsletter to receive a summary of the day's most important
news in your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes.
I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris. Thanks for listening.
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