Andrew Yang calls for "serious look" at 4-day workweeks, says "3-day weekends are better than 2-day weekends"

Former Democratic presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew 

Yang used the Memorial Day weekend to advocate for a four-day 

workweek on Twitter.

"3-Day weekends are better than 2-Day weekends. We should seriously 

look at 4-day workweeks. Studies show that we would be just as

 productive. It would create jobs at the margins and improve mental 

health," Yang tweeted Monday. Attached to his comment was a 

Washington Post article about New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda 

Ardern's recent Facebook video about boosting domestic tourism as

 the country comes out of lockdown.

In the video, Ardern briefly floated the idea of a four-day workweek,

 though she said, "Ultimately, that really sits between employers and

 employees."

Advocates of the plan, including Yang, say such a system could lead

 to job creation and happier workers. Perpetual Garden, a New Zealand

 estate planning firm, has already adopted a four-day workweek. The 

move was made after CEO Andrew Barnes read an article about 

research showing that the average British employee is only productive

 for 2.5 hours out of every day.

"If I gave people a day off a week to do all the other stuff that got in the 

way–all the little problems that you might have outside of work–would

you then get better productivity in the office in the four days when people

 worked?" Barnes said, describing his thought process to Fast Company.

Perpetual Garden's employees worked four eight-hour days rather than

 five at their usual salary on a trial run lasting eight weeks. According to

 Fast Company, stress levels reported by employees went from 45 percent

 to 38 percent, while job performance improved. The trial also showed that 

employees' commitment to their employer rose to 88 percent from 68 

percent previously. After the trial, Perpetual Garden made the change

 permanent.

When Microsoft Japan experimented with a four-day week in 2019, giving

 employees every Friday in August of that year off, productivity was up

 40 percent. Microsoft Japan also discovered that the company used 

fewer resources during that month. Pages printed in the office were 

down by nearly 60 percent and the amount of electricity consumed was 

down 23 percent compared to the previous year, according to Business

Insider.

Andrew Yang, shown here in a file photo speaking on February 08, 2020 in Manchester, New Hampshire, has repeated his call for a four-day workweek Monday on Twitter.
However, not all four-day workweek plans are the same. While Perpetual Garden merely dropped a day, reducing the number of hours worked, some companies have tried a "4/10" schedule—four work days per week, with 10 hours worked per day. According to a study from Stanford University, longer hours are linked to an increase in stress and sleep deprivation.
Other critics have suggested that employees would prefer flexible schedules to shorter work weeks. "Employees don't want a four-day workweek," Kenneth Matos, senior director of research for the New York City-based nonprofit Families and Work Institute, told the Society for Human Resource Management in 2015. "They want flexibility. They don't want to have to look their kid in the eye and say: 'I can't go to your ballgame.'"
In addition to a four-day workweek, Yang has also called for a European-style mandatory minimum employee leave policy. Under Yang's proposal, all full-time workers—except for those at new companies younger than 9 years old and small companies with fewer than 50 employees—would receive a minimum of four weeks a year of leave.