Most workers in The Bahamas work five days a week, eight hours per day. Countries around the world have adopted or are exploring the idea, through pilot programs, of a four day work week to increase productivity. Jimenita Swain asked Bahamians for their thoughts on the idea. Most of those polls were amenable to the four day work week though one man was concerned that it would lower productivity.
The Member of Parliament of Southern Shores, the Hon. Leroy Major gave his thoughts saying, “even now you have some countries who still settles for it and I think here in The Bahamas, even though we work five days a week, forty hours a week, I believe that as a country we could still work four days and still give as much. So I think the Bahamian people would be honest enough, I think they would be committed enough to do so.”
The question was also posed to the Minister of Labour and Immigration, the Hon. Keith Belle who said, “as you would appreciate the COVID pandemic has caused all governments, all countries to consider things which we would never have thought to have done and certainly the government is considering any number of initiatives. The four day work week is something that I would imagine that we would perhaps want to look at. It is not something that is in the forefront for us to necessarily do at this stage.”
The four day work week trial begin in the United Kingdom this past June. It is said to be the largest trial in the world thus far with approximately 3,300 employees across 70 companies participating.
