Four-day week campaigners are focusing too much on cosy office jobs

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has said NHS pressures are no longer confined to the winter as the health service is suffering a “year-round crisis in emergency care”. 

Although four-day week campaigners have argued that a shorter week will stop NHS staff from leaving and improve morale, it is almost impossible to see how the idea would work in practice amid chronic staff shortages. 

Far more likely to happen at least in the short-term is that office workers cash in while those we rely on the most get left behind. 

Anyone who is paid hourly could find themselves with less pay and less stability.

A Welsh Government report into the four-day week warned earlier this year that the idea could discriminate against frontline public sector employees and risk “widening existing inequalities”. 

The Welsh Government consultation was made up of a working group of senior civil servants and public sector bosses.

One manager said that allowing staff to have an extra day off would require them to hire an additional 179 staff on full-time equivalent contracts to maintain the same levels of service.

In the private sector, industries with a large portion of staff on their feet all day are also unlikely to find the majority of workers cheering for this.

Builders under deadline pressure have already said they would rather have flexible hours than a fixed short week.

Resentment could build in sectors such as construction if back-office staff switch to a shorter week on the same salaries, while those on the frontline continue to toil away.

The proportion of our lives devoted to work does need a rethink as robots shrink the length of time it takes to complete many office jobs.