Forty-five German companies and organizations began a six-month experiment in February 2024 C.E., asking a deceptively simple question: can workers do the same job in four days instead of five — and get paid the same either way? The trial, led by consulting firm Intraprenör in partnership with the non-profit 4 Day Week Global (4DWG), is one of the most closely watched labor experiments in Europe’s largest economy in years.
At a glance
- Four-day workweek trial: Forty-five German companies joined the pilot starting in February 2024 C.E., running for six months with no reduction in pay.
- Global pilot data: More than 500 companies worldwide have run trials with 4DWG since 2019 C.E., including programs in the U.K., Ireland, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S.
- Labor shortage context: Germany lost an estimated €26 billion (about $28 billion U.S.) in real income in 2023 C.E. due to illness-related absences, according to the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies.
What earlier trials found
The German experiment draws on a growing body of evidence from earlier 4DWG pilots. A study of nearly 3,000 workers in the U.K., led by researchers from Cambridge and Boston, found that about 40% of participants reported feeling less stressed after the trial. Resignations dropped by 57%. Sick days fell by two-thirds.
Revenue data was also encouraging. Across 56 of 61 participating U.K. companies, average revenue rose roughly 1.4% during the trial period. Most of those companies said they wanted to keep the shorter schedule after the experiment ended.
Advocates argue the logic is straightforward: workers who are less exhausted make fewer errors, take fewer sick days, and are less likely to quit — all of which saves companies money. A shorter week might also draw in people who currently can’t or won’t work five days, expanding the available labor pool at a time when Germany faces a well-documented skilled-worker shortage.
Why Germany is a particularly interesting test case
Germany has a long reputation for industrial efficiency. Yet productivity — measured by dividing economic output by hours worked — has declined in recent years. High energy costs have suppressed output, leaving companies with worse productivity scores even when their workers are putting in the same hours.
If those same companies can hold their output steady while cutting hours by 20%, their productivity numbers would improve by definition. That’s the arithmetic logic behind the trial. German trade union IG Metall has been pushing for shorter hours for years; the steel industry already caps the workweek at 35 hours.
This is part of a broader global conversation about worker wellbeing — one that increasingly intersects with public health, absenteeism, and sustainable economic output.
The skeptics have real points
Not everyone is convinced. Labor market expert Enzo Weber, who researches at the University of Regensburg and the Institute for Employment Research, told DW that the self-selection problem is serious: only companies whose work is already suited to a compressed schedule would volunteer for such a trial. That limits how far the results can be generalized.
Weber also cautions that concentrating five days of work into four could squeeze out the social and creative elements of the job — effects that wouldn’t show up in a six-month study window.
Holger Schäfer of the German Economic Institute in Cologne calls it unrealistic to expect a 25% productivity gain in exchange for a 20% cut in hours. Economist Bernd Fitzenberger of Germany’s Institute for Employment Research (IAB) points to sectors where the math simply doesn’t work — nursing, security services, and transportation all require coverage at fixed times, and a rigid four-day rule applied across those industries could raise costs and hurt competitiveness.
These are legitimate limits. The trial covers only 45 companies, lasts just six months, and can’t capture the long-run effects on creativity, team cohesion, or sectors where physical presence is non-negotiable. The results, whatever they show, will be suggestive rather than definitive.
What makes this trial worth watching
What sets the German pilot apart is the context. Germany’s Federal Statistical Office has documented rising absenteeism and falling productivity over recent years, giving the experiment a real-world urgency that pure research trials sometimes lack. The firms joining are making a genuine business bet, not an academic exercise.
The six-month window will produce data on revenue, sick days, staff retention, and worker wellbeing across a range of German industries. 4 Day Week Global will analyze results alongside academic partners, adding to an international dataset that now spans hundreds of companies and multiple continents.
Whether the four-day workweek works everywhere is almost certainly the wrong question. Whether it works for enough kinds of work to matter — that’s what this trial is designed to test. And for the workers and companies taking part, the next six months will offer an unusually direct answer.
Read more
For more on this story, see: DW — Germany tests four-day workweek amid labor shortage
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Personalized mRNA cancer vaccine shows strong six-year results for pancreatic cancer
- Australian researchers find a SIDS biomarker in newborn blood tests
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Germany
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