Malacañang urged to enforce four-day work week

The minority bloc at the House of Representatives appealed to Malacañang on Wednesday to consider enforcing a four-day work week for government offices in EDSA this Christmas season.

In a press briefing, Minority leader Bienvenido “Benny” Abante Jr. appealed to the Palace to study the implementation of the four-day workweek for non-frontline offices of national government agencies.

“This could also serve as a trial period to assess if such a scheme can work long-term,” said Abante, citing the recent experiment of software company Microsoft in one of its subsidiaries in Japan which led to a 40 percent boost in productivity.

“It worked there, it could work here. There is no harm in trying, because at this point, we should explore all possibilities to help address our traffic woes,” added Abante.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, however, said the government should be cautious in implementing the four-day work week as it might cause delays on implementation of projects, noting that she is more in favor of the proposal to allow flexible working hours so that majority of employees will not go to work simultaneously.