Late last month, B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau published an op-ed for Glacier Media calling on the province to rethink what a typical week of work should look like.
"A four-day workweek – without cuts to pay or working longer hours – is exactly the kind of innovative, people-first approach that can spark renewal in our workplaces," she wrote.
"Results from pilots and trials in B.C., across Canada and around the world prove that a four-day week is good for businesses and good for people. Shorter workweeks reduce stress and illness, and maintain or even boost productivity. Workers report improved job satisfaction and employers are better able to attract, recruit and retain workers."
It's an idea we've raised in the pages of Pique before. I wrote my own opinion piece a couple of years ago advocating for the same shift, while a 2020 Angus Reid Institute study found 53 per cent of Canadian adults said it would be a “good idea” to make a new 30-hour work week standard across the country.
We wanted to hear what our readers thought about the idea.
Pique Newsmagazine polled 294 Pique readers and asked the question: Do you think B.C. should transition to a four-day workweek?
The poll ran from March 2 to 9, 2023. Of the 294 votes, we can determine that 38 are from within the community.
More than 38 per cent of total respondents said they would be in favour of reducing the standard workweek by one day, so long as daily working hours are extended. Meanwhile, almost the same amount of readers said they'd support a four-day work week as long as eight-hour days—and salaries— stay the same. Only less than 20 per cent of respondents said they'd like to see five-day weeks stick around.
The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Pique Newsmagazine readers that are located in Whistler. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 5.64%, 19 times out of 20.
Pique Newsmagazine uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
