Sweden's latest six-hour work day experiment was a complete failure

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After a year-long trial at the retirement home Sjöjungfrun in Umeå, Sweden, it is apparent that the six-hour work day didn't achieve what was hoped for.
Similar to the experiment at the Svartedalen retirement home in Gothenburg, which was also completed this year, nurses at Sjöjungfrun in Umeå had six-hour days on eight-hour salaries for a year.
The experiment was motivated by (political) expectations that reduced working hours would lead to increased personal health and well-being, compensating increased costs - and any productivity losses - by savings on sick leave and health-related expenses in the long-run.
The results leave little hope of any such beneficial effects even in the short-run. Sick leave did not decrease over the year but actually rose, from 8% to 9.3%, reports Sundsvalls Tidning.

Many different accounts of six-hour work days have surfaced

The one-year trial at the Svartedalen retirement home in Gothenburg received international attention this spring when it was proclaimed a huge success, making the nurses happier, and less prone to take sick-leave or vacation, and even more productive.
That study found that nurses in a control group at another facility were almost three times more likely to take time off and twice as likely to call in sick. The study also found that the nurses were 20% happier, Bloomberg reports — though it should be noted that measures of happiness are notoriously elusive.
The Umeå trial calls into question the miraculous results of Svartedalen. At the very least, it indicates that the success cannot be assumed to apply universally.
Kiruna was the scene for a much larger six-hour workday scheme, stretching from 1989 to 2005, which was finally scrapped because of lack of data to support any benefits.
And the debate isn't over yet. Starting tomorrow, September 1, social service workers at certain departments in Sundsvall, Sweden, will have six-hour work days at eight-hour salaries for a year. But in this upcoming experiment the six-hour work day isn't primarily being introduced for the sake of health and productivity, but as a perk to facilitate recruiting and hopefully mitigate the shortage of social service workers, Sundsvalls Tidning writes.

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