ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sanna Marin asked for it on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the SDP, the social democratic party of which he is de facto leader. To support the idea also Vasemmistoliitto, the union of the radical left of the Minister of Education Li Andersson. “It is important to allow Finnish citizens to work less. It is not a question of governing with a feminine style but of offering content and keeping promises to voters ”.
Finland currently works 8 hours a day five days a week. So the Social Democratic premier is studying together with Li Andersson and the other coalition leaders how to start a broad test to experience the best way to adopt the shortened working week.
The 6-hour day already works in neighboring Sweden: in 2015 Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, reduced working hours to six hours a day in rest homes and in the municipal hospital, without changes in the salary of employees. The results two years later speak clearly: the staff are happier, healthier and more productive. With the reduction of working hours, services have been expanded and patients have been more satisfied.
And the costs were stable: more employees were hired, which resulted in higher tax revenues. In addition, they found fewer sick days, fewer disability pensions and fewer unemployed people saved money.
The Swedish tech industry has also increased the working day to 6 hours a day. The automaker Toyota has shown that it works: not only were Toyota employees more satisfied and motivated, but they could also increase their productivity – and in the end: Toyotas profits. The reasons are simple: first, unnecessarily long meetings have been discarded or made more efficient. And secondly, there are far fewer downtime during the working day that are full of social media or Internet browsing.
People go to work and do it in a more concentrated and concentrated way. So they go home and have enough time to spend the afternoon with their families, friends and hobbies.
