# Story 2 — What the UK can learn from Iceland's 36-hour week

- **Episode:** [198](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/198.md) (2025-05-20)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** iceland, 36-hour-week, work-week, productivity
- **Time:** 11:28–17:28 (start 688s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/198?t=688](https://truthliesandwork.com/198?t=688)

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[11:28] Al Elliott: No, I, I've just, I just had a go. Uh, so anyway, so she's Icelandic. She's been living and working the 4-hour working week for 6 years. But the question is, is it actually working? Now, this is a longitudinal study, Leanne. You love a bit of longitudinal studies, don't you?
[11:42] Leanne Elliott: Love it
[11:42] Al Elliott: Back in 2019, Iceland officially reduced, reduced the standard work week from 40 to 36 hours, which affected nearly 90% of the working population. Just to give you a bit of an idea, we've had some brilliant people from the Working Time Directive on, both people actually. I think Grace and Jo were both on as guests previously. They've been doing a trial in Ireland and also in the UK, but they, but it's like a tiny percentage, probably like 0.9% of the workforce. This is 90%, 9 out of 10. Jobs were cut to 4 days. The change followed the successful trials that involved about 1% of Iceland's workforce, which again is maybe good news for the UK. I don't know. And then, but unlike Belgium's 4-day working model, which they brought in, I think, 3 years ago, they compressed 40 hours into 4 days. Iceland genuinely reduced— I know, Leanne's shaking her head
[12:30] Rose Soffel: I know
[12:31] Al Elliott: Iceland genuinely reduced everyone's work. So they're just work for 4 hours, they don't— 4 days, they don't have to do the full 5 days. Now, it has improved gender equality because women who previously worked part-time at 36 hours now have full-time status, full-time pay, benefits, etc. For example, the author Maria, she said her husband, who's a government worker and also a pigeon fancier as well— if you don't know what pigeon fancying is, it's not anything weird, it's just someone who likes pigeons— he now takes 2 full Fridays off a month, and he loves to spend his free days sleeping in, according to Maria, calling fellow pigeon enthusiasts, cleaning, and picking up their son from school. Can't imagine he'd be doing all that at the same time, but anyway, it sounds like a relatively fun Friday. So the author describes seeing a visible happy feeling on her husband's face every Thursday before his day off. That's how she knows the following Friday is his day off. There was another example at a large car dealership. Office workers chose to work shorter daily hours or full half days off. And the mechanics, they adjusted their shift patterns, but they still fixed the same number of cars on time. So despite these initial concerns, productivity has remained stable or improved. There you go, Joe and Grace, you knew this. Leanne knew this. And it's just down to better prioritisation, more efficient meetings, just getting rid of the stuff as we've talked about with Benitez. Bert Benitez. I can't remember who's another guy came on. Phenomenal guy
[13:56] Rose Soffel: Banks Benitez
[13:57] Al Elliott: Banks Benitez, that's it. Sorry, sorry, Banks. Bert. Um, and he basically says that all of this is gonna increase job satisfaction, it's gonna reduce stress, it's gonna give you happier employees overall. Now, this is the key bit. This is science. Uh, in Reykjavik, they measured the rush hour traffic on a Friday and they noticed it has been noticeably decreased, obviously making City travel easier, making people happier. And that's the core thing, isn't it? On a Friday, you can see how many people are not working. Now, there is a Gallup World Poll every year which measures the happiest country. 2025, Iceland number 3. Finland, Denmark, then Iceland. Now, what's interesting is Belgium, you know, where they've compressed their 5 days into 4, they're 14th
[14:44] Leanne Elliott: Wow
[14:45] Al Elliott: And the UK and the US are 23 and 24 respectively. So I think there's something in this, Leigh. What do you think?
[14:52] Leanne Elliott: There's definitely something in this. And I think the first thing to say, a reduced working week is the goal here, not compressed hours. So whether you want to call it— I think people get hung up on the 4-day work week. It doesn't look like it has to be 4 days. And it's when we spoke to Jeanette from the Curve Group, that's not necessarily the ideal solution for everybody. is actually working for carers, for example, people with children, having a shorter working day 5 days a week is much better than having a 4-day work week. But either way, compressing 40 hours into 4 days is not, is not it. We're talking about overall a reduced working week. For those cynics out there that might be thinking, oh, that's really nice, but you know, we have a 40-hour working week for a reason, we always have done, um, people are just lazy, we need to continue to work 40 hours. And I'm sure there's some Americans that are laughing out loud right now going, 40 hours, that would be nice, I work 65 on a regular. Um, so I think it's— I would leave you with this as a little point of reflection. When the 40-hour working week came in, we were back in like the 1920s, was it, Al? '30s? Henry Ford?
[16:00] Al Elliott: Yeah, Henry Ford, yeah
[16:01] Leanne Elliott: 8-8-8. So it's 8 hours sleep, 8 hours work, 8 hours recreation. That was fine when for those 8 hours at work, you would go to work, you'd be there for 8 hours, you'd leave, and you wouldn't be taking any work with you. Nobody would be intruding your recreational time or your rest time about work. Whereas now we have our phones, we're getting constant emails, we're getting WhatsApp messages from our manager, we're getting those phone calls. It's so much interruption from work. in our other 8 hours and 8 hours, our rest and recovery and our recreation. So it's not sustainable. And the sign that's not sustainable is mental health is getting worse, burnout is going up, productivity is down, engagement is down. All the statistics are showing us in the UK and in a lot of European countries and in Australia and America that work as we're currently doing it isn't sustainable. And what we're seeing now as a potential solution, and it's one of several, a reduced working week as a possible solution, is that it is working. And all the data is showing that it's working for the individual, for the business, and clearly now from Iceland at a societal level as well. So be sceptical, but make no mistake, how we're currently working is not sustainable and something needs to change
[17:25] Al Elliott: So, Lee, to round this off, I'm sure you've got one more thing you want to talk about