Two Sides. One Story. You Make the Third.
3 Narratives News | October 2, 2025
“Going forward… we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean long hours at high intensity.” — Elon Musk, email to Twitter staff, Nov. 2022
Just two years ago, a shorter workweek felt like the future. In the UK, fifty-plus firms tested four days on full pay and found what many leaders secretly hoped: less burnout, tighter focus, no collapse in revenue. Microsoft Japan shut the office on Fridays for a month and watched productivity spike. Iceland ran national trials for years and kept services steady while people slept more, stressed less, and smiled a little easier. If you squinted, you could make out a new social contract taking shape: work smarter, not longer.
Then the mood shifted. Elon Musk told workers to opt into “extremely hardcore” hours or step aside. Donald Trump’s return to the White House reframed the culture of work as a contest of discipline and grit. Germany’s leadership mulled whether Europeans should simply work more. And in China, even after courts labeled the notorious “996” regime illegal, the pressure to prove one’s worth through time spent never quite left the building. The promise of a universal four-day workweek met an older truth: in much of the world, coverage and competition still rule.
A Week Is a Choice, Not a Law of Nature
The “week” isn’t fixed. In the Netherlands, the shortest average week in the EU—about 32 hours—grew from decades of normalizing part-time and flexible schedules. The country posts high employment and strong productivity per hour, even as many families live on four days. In Japan, the state had to legislate against deadly overwork—capping overtime and tightening enforcement after a sequence of karoshi cases. And in China, the Supreme People’s Court made it explicit in 2021: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—996—is illegal. Same planet; very different weeks.
The Promise—Four Days, Same (or Better) Output
The strongest argument for a shorter week is deceptively simple: most organizations don’t lack hours; they leak them. When the UK ran the world’s largest modern trial (61 companies, 2022–23), 92% carried on afterward; stress fell, burnout dropped, sick days shrank, and revenue held steady or ticked up. “We didn’t pay for less work; we designed for fewer wasted hours,” as one participating CEO told researchers. Microsoft Japan found the same mechanism: the “40% productivity jump” tracked to cutting meetings, capping them to 30 minutes, and pushing decisions out of email. Iceland’s multi-year trials concluded that productivity and service “remained the same or improved” while well-being soared.
Advocates like Joe O’Connor (4 Day Week Global) argue the four-day week is “already here,” buried under the rubble of old habits—bloated calendars, poor handovers, and weak use of technology. Uncover the waste, and the “lost day” reappears.
Even governments have built flex under constraint models. Belgium’s law didn’t cut hours—it compressed them into four longer days for those who opt in. That compromise speaks to what skeptics often miss: the four-day conversation is plural. There are many “shorter weeks,” from true 32-hour models to compressed 40s to nine-day fortnights. One size never fits all.
The Pushback—Coverage, Cost, and the Culture of Grit
But the romance meets the ledger. Try running a pediatric ER, a bakery, a bus network, or a factory line on a rush order on four days without hiring more people or cutting service. In these worlds, coverage is king. If per-hour productivity doesn’t leap, someone must fund the fifth day: customers (higher prices) or employers (higher payroll). For many small businesses, neither is easy.
Enter the politics of work. In Washington’s new era, the shorter week can look—at least to critics—like elite indulgence. Trump’s rhetoric leans toward work as proof of national vitality; the symbolism of “less” rankles. In Germany, a summer debate turned blunt: should Europeans simply work more to revive growth? The signal: four-day advocates now face not just operational friction but a headwind of values.
Then there’s Musk, whose companies have normalized a high-intensity ethos. His 2022 all-hands email after buying Twitter (now X) reads like a manifesto for the opposite of the shorter week: “long hours at high intensity,” with “only exceptional performance” counting as a pass. The message traveled. For founders and managers who already believed in heroic hours, it read like permission to demand them.
Globally, cultural cross-talk amplifies the pressure. In 2019, Alibaba’s Jack Ma called the 72-hour “996” a “blessing,” and though China’s courts later declared the regime illegal, the norm leaves a shadow in parts of tech and manufacturing: visible sacrifice still signals worth. Compete with that while promising three-day weekends, and you invite hard questions.
The Silent Story—Design, Not Dogma
We keep arguing “four days” versus “five or seven,” when the more honest question is design. The Dutch didn’t pass a single magic law; over decades they normalized part-time work and flexibility, producing the EU’s shortest average week and high per-hour output. That’s a system, not a stunt. It also comes with trade-offs—especially gender gaps in leadership—reminding us that time distribution is never neutral.
Likewise, Japan’s reforms didn’t promise long weekends; they capped overwork. The intent was more radical: to stop the creep toward borderless labor. By setting ceilings of 40 legal hours a week and explicit caps on overtime, the state tried to carve human time back out of company time. That’s a boundary decision, not a perks decision.
For employers, the practical path is a portfolio:
- Task-fit weeks: Creative and analytical teams can run true 32-hour weeks with ruthless meeting hygiene and heavy use of AI summarization, scheduling, and QA.
- Coverage rotations: Manufacturing, logistics, and customer support often need four-day rotations (not everyone off Friday) funded by yield gains—predictive maintenance, better changeovers, cobots.
- Nine-day fortnights: Hospitals, schools, and public services can shave hours while preserving continuity—every other Friday off, for example—with relief staffing built in.
And for workers, the line between “four” and “seven” runs through a quieter frontier: the right to disconnect. Hybrid work saved commutes but blurred weekends; endless pings make five feel like seven. Belgium’s reform package paired its compressed week with a formal right to switch off—because the calendar means little if the inbox never sleeps.
Key Takeaways
- The best evidence (UK, Iceland, Microsoft Japan) shows shorter weeks can work when leaders redesign the process—not just calendars.
- Coverage-driven sectors face real costs; compressed weeks (Belgium) and rotations are more viable than universal Fridays off.
- The “week” is cultural: the Netherlands normalizes short hours; Japan fences off overtime; China’s courts outlawed 996, even as the norm lingers in places.
- Today’s headwind is ideological as much as operational: Musk’s hardcore ethos and conservative “work-more” politics have reset the vibe toward a seven-day hustle.
FAQs
Is the four-day workweek “old news”?
No. Large pilots remain recent and robust; many firms kept the policy after the trial periods. The debate persists because sectors differ and politics have shifted.
How did Microsoft Japan get a 40% productivity bump?
By closing Fridays for a month and slashing meeting time—30-minute caps and more asynchronous work—rather than asking people to sprint.
What exactly did Musk say?
In Nov. 2022 he told Twitter staff the company would be “extremely hardcore,” meaning long hours at high intensity, and asked employees to opt in or take severance.
Is 996 legal in China?
No. In Aug. 2021, China’s Supreme People’s Court said 996 violates labor law. Enforcement varies, but the legal signal is clear.
Who actually runs on shorter weeks nationally?
Iceland’s years-long trials catalyzed widespread hour reductions without pay cuts and with stable or improved services—showing a national pathway via negotiated reforms.
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External references:
OECD: Hours Worked ·
UK Four-Day Pilot (Autonomy)
