Guernsey Press

Four days is worth a fair trial

THE concept of the four-day week is certainly dividing opinion in the island.

Published

The trial being conducted this summer by accountants PwC is small – just four weeks in the school holidays – but its impact could be significant, either positively, according to the naysayers, negatively.

It’s clear that the four-day week won’t work for all, but could it work for some? And what would that do for Guernsey?

As the island continually looks for what the director-general of the Financial Services Commission once called a ‘Grand Projet’, something to take ‘tax haven’ out of the national and international headlines, would it not be a positive to be known as ‘the home of the four-day working week’?

It could certainly be a positive for recruitment and retention of staff.

On the downside though, if the four-day week was to take off in a significant way, what would the impact be on those sectors – say retail, and construction – which are not able to offer such a perk due to the way they work?

Would they find it even harder to employ staff, as potential candidates queue up for a three-day weekend elsewhere?

That could then lead to the need to hike wages to attract candidates, and fuel inflation just at the wrong time.

The four-day week is far from simple to introduce. But it’s definitely worthy of a trial, whether it proves to be of value to some, none, or all.