Sweden Will Start Experimenting With Shorter Hours This Summer

Some government workers in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, are about to embark on an interesting experiment this summer--a six-hour workday, with full pay.

The year-long project, set to officially begin July 1st, will divide some workers into two groups. One enviable test group will work shorter days, while their colleagues will work eight hours each day. It is unclear how this will be decided exactly, but it is an experiment designed to test growing assumptions that fewer, more-focused hours could be a boon for employee productivity. "We'll compare the two afterwards and see how they differ," Mat Pilhem, the Left Party deputy mayor of Gothenburg, told The Local. "We hope to get the staff members taking fewer sick days and feeling better mentally and physically after they've worked shorter days."

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