Whatever happened to the 4-day workweek?
Is the Four-Day Workweek Dream Fading—or Just on Pause?
For a moment, the four-day workweek felt like the future.
During the pandemic, it seemed as attainable as mastering a sourdough starter or reorganizing your entire life from your living room. A 32-hour week with 40-hour pay didn’t just sound good — it sounded possible.
Fast forward a few years, and the landscape looks very different. Hiring has cooled. CEOs are calling employees back to the office. “Hustle harder” rhetoric is everywhere. And for many workers, the dream of permanent three-day weekends feels like it’s been pushed back into the freezer.
According to Juliet Schor, a Boston College economist who studies shorter workweeks, we’re seeing “a pushback from management on the things that workers were gaining during the pandemic.”
But advocates say the idea isn’t dead — just delayed.
Why the Workplace Mood Shifted
One major challenge is that the four-day workweek clashes with the current corporate narrative: productivity, presence, and a return to pre-pandemic norms. RTO mandates are rising. Flexibility conversations are fading. And in some corners of corporate culture, tougher schedules like “9–9–6” (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week) are being talked about as badges of honor.
Ironically, Schor notes, 9–9–6 thinking is in some ways a reaction to the momentum the four-day workweek once had — even though research from the UK to New Zealand shows that shorter schedules often boost employee happiness and maintain productivity.
For now, though, many CEOs are leaning hard into messaging about hustle, rigor, and office commitment. This isn’t just about philosophy.
According to Vishal Reddy, executive director of WorkFour, it’s also about optics.
“Part of it is a performance,” he says — a way for leaders to telegraph to boards and investors that productivity won’t slip.
And as the novelty of the four-day workweek has worn off since 2020–2021, when companies were scrambling to attract talent, the buzz has quieted.
But not disappeared.
Reddy points to new legislation in New York and Maine proposing four-day workweek pilots as proof that support is still alive. And importantly, he says that companies that adopt the schedule almost never switch back.
Could AI Bring the Four-Day Workweek Back?
Surprisingly, the fate of shorter workweeks may hinge less on culture and more on economics — and AI.
Pavel Shynkarenko, founder and CEO of Mellow, says that widespread adoption becomes feasible only when productivity growth soars, ideally into the high single digits or even double digits. AI could help get us there.
If AI significantly boosts output, companies may be able to maintain performance with fewer human hours. In fact, Shynkarenko believes shorter workweeks could become a “safe harbor” during the transition to an AI-driven economy — a way to avoid mass unemployment by distributing work more evenly.
Eventually, he predicts, even a four-day workweek may feel old-fashioned.
We could be looking at two-day weeks in the future.
But not anytime soon.
Until AI is mature enough to handle more workload, businesses will feel too much cost pressure to cut hours. And in high-stakes industries like tech, a shorter week might be perceived as a competitive disadvantage.
Still, Schor argues that burnout levels remain well above pre-pandemic norms, and employers can’t ignore this forever.
The Hidden Guilt Factor
Even if the economic conditions become ideal, there’s another obstacle: workers themselves.
Dale Whelehan, systems psychology professor at Trinity College Dublin and former CEO of 4 Day Week Global, says workers often struggle with guilt when transitioning to shorter schedules.
“There was such an internalized sense of guilt,” he explains — guilt about working less, producing less, or appearing less committed.
Yet despite this psychological hurdle, Whelehan believes the benefits to employee well-being and business performance are far too significant to overlook.
The four-day workweek may be quieter today — drowned out by RTO pushes and AI hype — but it’s not gone.
“The conversation,” he says, “is going to rise again.”