Four-Day Work Week Statistics (2026)

Fifty-six of the 61 companies in the UK's 2022 four-day week pilot kept the schedule when the trial ended, and 54 were still on it a year later. In the US and Ireland trial that ran at the same time, none of the 27 companies that completed the final survey said they would go back. Across the pooled trials, 2,896 employees at 141 organizations reported lower burnout and better health that 12 control companies did not. Those are the strongest numbers in favor. The honest ones alongside them: the pilots measured revenue and self-ratings rather than output per hour, the firms were small and self-selected, and the turnover and sick-day improvements were not statistically significant.

The pages that rank for this question report the 92% continuation rate as a productivity gain, present Microsoft Japan's one-month sales figure as a trial result, and label a five-year-old Icelandic 35-hour experiment a four-day week. This page uses the UK, US-Ireland, 2024-25 UK, German, Scottish and South Cambridgeshire reports, the Nature Human Behavior paper and the BLS hours data, states the sample behind every figure, and covers what the US baseline looks like.

The US baseline

Americans in private payroll jobs averaged 34.4 paid hours a week in September 2026, according to the BLS Employment Situation, a figure that includes part-timers. People who usually work full time averaged 41.9 hours actually at work in 2025, per the Current Population Survey. There is no federal count of employers on a four-day week, and the US surveys that estimate adoption, from the American Psychological Association and Gallup, could not be verified for this page. Gallup's measure also counts compressed four-day, 40-hour schedules, which is not what the pilots tested. Our working hours statistics page covers the baseline in detail.

The pilots and what they found

The trials share a design: a 20% cut in hours with no cut in pay, run for six months by 4 Day Week Global or its UK affiliate, with researchers at Boston College, Cambridge and Autonomy collecting company and employee data.

The peer-reviewed synthesis is Fan, Schor, Kelly and Gu's 2025 paper in Nature Human Behavior, pooling 2,896 employees at 141 organizations in six countries against 12 control companies. Burnout, job satisfaction and mental and physical health improved in the trial firms and not in the controls, larger individual hour reductions produced larger gains, and the effects ran through better self-rated work ability, fewer sleep problems and less fatigue.

Revenue and productivity: what was measured

No pilot measured output per hour. What they collected was company revenue and self-ratings. In the UK, revenue at 23 reporting companies rose 1.4% during the trial, and at 24 companies it was 35% higher than the same six months in prior years, a comparison that mostly reflects growing firms choosing to join. Companies rated the trial's effect on performance 7.5 out of 10 and on productivity 7.5. In the US and Ireland, revenue at 16 companies rose 8.1% during the trial and 37.6% against the prior year at 20 companies, headcount grew 12.2%, and companies rated the productivity effect 7.7. In the 2024-25 UK cohort, three of four organizations reporting revenue saw it rise. South Cambridgeshire's council maintained or improved 21 of 24 service indicators, with ten significantly improved and three declining.

The defensible reading is that the trials found no evidence of harm to output and some evidence of maintained or improved revenue, in small, self-selected firms, over six months. They did not find a 35% productivity gain, and the firms that would have struggled mostly did not apply. Our remote work productivity statistics page covers the measurement problem in a related context.

Burnout and wellbeing

Wellbeing is where the trials have their strongest and most consistent results, because employees were surveyed before and after with validated scales.

• UK 2022: 71% of employees reported lower burnout and 39% less stress. Life satisfaction rose from 6.69 to 7.56 out of 10, and satisfaction with time from 5.28 to 7.51. Hours fell from 38 to 34 a week; 71% worked fewer hours, 15% more.
• US and Ireland 2022: burnout fell from 2.74 to 2.30 on a five-point scale, with 67% lower and 20% higher. Hours fell from 40.8 to 34.8, with 83% working less and 9% more. Job satisfaction rose from 7.34 to 7.62. The share sleeping under seven hours fell from 41.3% to 35.1%, with the authors noting a seasonal caveat.
• UK 2024-25: 62% less frequent burnout, 47% higher job satisfaction, 41% better mental health, from a small panel of 89 respondents.
• Scotland: at one agency, the share very satisfied with work-life balance rose from 4% to 84%; sick days for psychological reasons fell 25.7% against the prior year.

Our employee burnout statistics page puts the baseline burnout rates against these changes.

Retention, hiring and sick days

The retention figures that circulate are real and not statistically significant, and the reports say so. In the UK pilot, resignations fell from 2.0 to 0.8 per 100 employees, new hires from 3.4 to 2.4, and sick and personal days from 2.0 to 0.7 per employee per month. The authors state that all three trends fail significance because of small numbers and a changing labor market. In the US and Ireland trial, resignations moved from 1.76 to 1.70 per 100 and sick days from 0.56 to 0.39, again not significant. A year on, 50% of UK pilot managers reported reduced turnover and 32% improved recruitment.

The one case with large enough numbers is South Cambridgeshire, where turnover fell 39% after the trial began and was 41% below the pre-trial level by October 2025, applications rose 53%, 76% of new hires said the four-day week influenced their decision to apply, and the council estimated £339,263 in annual savings, largely from filling ten of 22 hard-to-fill posts permanently. Our employee turnover statistics page covers how to read small-sample turnover changes.

What employees would trade for it

At the end of the UK pilot, 90% of employees definitely wanted to continue and five people out of more than 1,100 said they somewhat did not; none said definitely not. Asked what pay rise would make them return to five days, 70% said 10% to 50%, 8% said more than 50% and 15% said no amount of money. In the US and Ireland trial, 96.9% of the 495 employees in the panel definitely wanted to continue, and among those who preferred four days, 42% would need a 26% to 50% raise to take a five-day job and 13% said no amount would do. Those are pilot participants, who are not a random sample of workers. US worker-preference surveys exist but could not be verified for this page.

Where it does not work

The evidence base is small firms: 88% of the 2024-25 UK organizations had 100 or fewer staff, and more than half of the US-Ireland companies had 25 or fewer. In Germany, 30% of organizations had abandoned reduced hours within two years and about 40% had limited the pilot to selected teams. In the UK pilot, 15% of employees worked more hours, 13% saw no change, and 49% saw no change in overtime. In the US-Ireland trial, 17% reported higher stress and 20% higher burnout. In Scotland, 20% of staff at two of five public bodies struggled to keep to a 35-hour week because of workload. Iceland's 2021-22 national survey found 55% satisfaction with reduced hours in the private sector against 65% to 68% in government, and 54% in male-dominated workplaces against 70% in female-dominated ones. The pattern across all of it is that reduced hours work where the work can be compressed and fail where it cannot, and that the trials have mostly enrolled the first kind of organization.

The policy picture

The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, introduced in the Senate as S.3947 in March 2024 and in the House as H.R.1332 in March 2023, would phase the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime threshold from 40 to 32 hours over three years and bar employers from cutting pay to compensate. Both were referred to committee and died with the 118th Congress. Elsewhere, 264 UK employers are accredited by the 4 Day Week Foundation as permanently on a four-day week, 72 of 73 Scottish public bodies moved to a 35-hour contractual week by April 2025, and about 86% of Iceland's workforce gained shorter hours or the right to them through agreements negotiated between 2019 and 2021, following trials that cut hours from 40 to 35 or 36. Our overtime calculator covers the current 40-hour threshold.

Figures to stop using

• "Microsoft Japan boosted productivity 40%." Sales per employee for one month in August 2019 against August 2018, in one office, alongside meeting-length rules. Microsoft's results page no longer exists.
• "92% of companies saw productivity maintained or improved." 92% is the share that continued the schedule. Productivity was a 7.5 out of 10 self-rating.
• "Sick days fell 65% and turnover 57%." True of the UK pilot's raw numbers, and the report says neither is statistically significant.
• "Revenue rose 35%." Against a prior-year period, for growing self-selected firms. During the trial itself it rose 1.4%.
• "Iceland adopted a four-day week." Iceland's trials cut hours to 35 or 36 a week.
• "The Nature study found 90% of companies kept it." Continuation rates come from the individual pilot reports, not the paper.
• "97% of US employees wanted to continue, from a survey of 27." 96.9% is from 495 employees. 27 is the number of companies.

Key takeaways

• 56 of 61 UK pilot companies continued the four-day week in 2023 and 54 were still on it a year later. All 17 organizations in the 2024-25 UK cohort continued.
• The pilots measured revenue and self-ratings, not output per hour. UK revenue rose 1.4% during the trial; companies rated the productivity effect 7.5 out of 10.
• Burnout fell for 71% of UK and 67% of US-Ireland employees, and the pooled Nature Human Behavior analysis of 2,896 employees found improvements absent in 12 control firms.
• Resignations fell from 2.0 to 0.8 per 100 and sick days from 2.0 to 0.7 per employee per month in the UK pilot. The authors say neither is statistically significant.
• South Cambridgeshire council's turnover fell 41% and applications rose 53% after it adopted a four-day week; 21 of 24 service indicators held or improved.
• 15% of UK pilot employees said no amount of money would bring them back to five days; 70% would need a 10% to 50% raise.
• 30% of German trial organizations dropped reduced hours within two years. 15% of UK employees worked more hours during the trial.
• The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act was referred to committee in 2023 and 2024 and did not advance. Average US private payroll hours are 34.4 a week.