Unilever's New Zealand branch plans to launch an experiment whereby employees work just four days a week but will be paid for five, reported Fortune. The year-long trial will test whether this will create a material change in the way its 81 employees work. If it goes well, then the company will evaluate whether to extend the four-day week to its 155,000 employees worldwide. The company is doing so after the prime minister suggested that firms give it a try, under the belief that it will not only boost productivity but increase domestic tourism to make up for the pandemic-induced drop in foreign tourism. The firm is taking inspiration from another New Zealand company that did so a year ago and came away with a 20 percent increase in productivity.

The concept of a four-day week has been gaining currency over the last few years, to the point where the AFL-CIO is advocating in its favor. The movement does have its skeptics, however. Entrepreneur Grant Cardone, for example, is generally against any reduction in working hours, saying that if you let people get too comfortable, they will stop aspiring to improve themselves. This was the same criticism that online education firm Treehouse's CEO made when he switched to a 32-hour schedule before deciding to switch back, saying that it killed the productivity and work ethic of its employees. But others say that this argument misses the point, which isn't (or shouldn't be) about being more productive but, rather, just doing less work. 

The criticisms leveled against reducing the work week to four days, or even 32-hours, are similar to those raised at other times when there has been a reduction in the standard work day. A journal article from 1919 noted that British textile manufacturers greatly protested even reducing the work day from 12 hours to 10, saying it would kneecap productivity to the point where investments in the industry would no longer be worth it. In The Quest for Time, which outlines international movements for an eight-hour workday in the 19th and early 20th century, author Gary Cross says that there was vicious resistance in France to a bill mandating one half-day off of work per week for women, with 10 of 28 local chambers of commerce formally opposing the measure; opponents thought it was an unwelcome intrusion into how they ran their businesses and said it would increase costs in the long run from having to hire more workers.