A comparison between Greece and South Korea as they adopt a six-day and four-day work week

Amid the ongoing economic crisis in Greece,the country has taken a bold step by introducing a six day work week. Starting from July 1, private sector workers in Greece will have to work 6 days a week as work hours increased from 41 to 48 hours per week.

This move from Kyriakos Mitsotakis government has been seeing increasing protests from the opposition, trade unions, as well as the public sector workers, like educators, transportation workers and workers in the medical field. Greece is the first country in the European Union to make this move. 

According to some reports, this move was taken way back in Sept, 2023 as growing concerns of employee productivity rose. The labour policy was approved after 158 out of 300 legislators in the assembly voted in favour.

Other countries still using six-day work week

The six day work week is still prevalent in some countries like India, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong. But the major difference between Greece and them is that the other mentioned nations have stuck to a maximum 8 hours work day across 5 days a week although some sectors stretch it to another additional day. 

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Four-day work week and productivity levels

While this is the case, some European and Asian nations like Belgium and South Korea are taking big steps to bring the higher efficiency of employees by introducing a four-day work week.

The decision by South Korea to reduce the work days has come after the disclosure of facts that South Korean employees have worked 1901 hours in 2022, that is 149 hours more than the OECD average. 

This decision would also improve the Work and Life balance and help in increasing the efficiency as per reports by lifestyle experts.

Countries with Longest Working Hours

If there is a comparison made for countries with longest workweeks, Bhutan comes first in the list with 54.3 hours per week. After that Lesotho is there at 49.5 hours, followed by Qatar at 48.2, Liberia and Lebanon with 48 hours each. They are followed by Congo at 47.9, Jordan at 47, Pakistan and Brunei at 46.6 each making up the list of 9 nations who have the longest work weeks globally.