It's a troubling thought, to be sure, but a longer workweek is already a reality for some workers. Greece has allowed some industries to move to a 48-hour workweek to bump productivity. And South Korean companies, such as Samsung, are telling some execs to also show up on Saturday or Sunday to help boost the company's business.
Now, with economic alarm bells going off in the US, some workers pining for less time on the job may have to keep dreaming.
And that may not be the worst of it: Employees who'd hoped to stay in or land remote roles may find that harder to pull off. But perhaps the biggest threat to the rank and file is layoffs . Jittery CEOs eager to please Wall Street — and their boards — could decide to make the kind of sweeping cuts that Intel recently announced .
The weaker-than-expected July jobs report, which is spooking investors , could give some employers cover to step back from a shorter week, remote work, and other measures aimed at improving employee well-being, labor-market experts told Business Insider.
Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said there was a perception that some employers had used layoffs as a cudgel to pull workers back into the office. And he said bosses could use the latest headlines about the economy as a fresh reason to get tough with workers — even if business is still doing OK.
"It's not about the reality as much as the perception," Cappelli told BI.
He said that while many workers in recent years gained some leverage, employers had still held most of the power outside a few exceptions, such as retail workers toward the end of pandemic lockdowns.
"Employees never really had much of an upper hand in the job market," Cappelli said.
Workers could feel as if they have even less power if bosses' worries about the economy make them less charitable toward their employees.
Some big-name businesses report that inflation is pinching consumers to the point that some are cutting back on their lattes and booze.
Starbucks said last week that traffic to its shops had slumped — especially among customers who weren't regulars — and CEO Laxman Narasimhan pointed to "a challenging consumer environment." The liquor giant Diageo posted its first slide in annual sales since 2020.
It's the kind of thing that could make an employer less inclined to try something new — such as a four-day workweek.
Yet even without lackluster sales, Cappelli said, the four-day workweek was already unlikely to be widely adopted in the US.
"I don't think that ever had any chance in the US," he said. But, at the same time, Cappelli also doesn't think companies will push workers to come in on a sixth day. "That's a huge norm break."
He noted that the shift in Greece was more focused on letting workers have overtime.
CEOs' safe space
Brigid Schulte, the director of the Better Life Lab at New America and author of the forthcoming book "Over Work," told BI that when worries about the economy pop up, many leaders want to return to familiar ways of working.
"In times of uncertainty, particularly leadership wants to go back to sort of what feels like a safer time," she said. "The only irony there is that that way wasn't necessarily better."
Schulte said companies that decide to dump all of their economic problems on workers are short-sighted, noting research that shows layoffs do long-term damage to a company. And, Schulte said, longer work hours are associated with lower productivity, more burnout , and presenteeism.
Schulte said that too often, when the threat of a downturn looms, leaders see their workers as a big cost on their balance sheet.
"Taking that longer-term view is actually going to be better for people and for your business in the long run," she said.
If companies use economic worries to reverse course on efforts such as flexible work arrangements or to conduct layoffs, they put their own well-being at risk.
"You end up really damaging the trust and morale at your organization," Schulte said. "And, really, you're only as good as your people."
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