Germany 4-day week pilot: 70% of organisations stuck with reduced hours after two years

The two-year follow-up to Germany’s national 4-day week pilot has been published, showing 70% of the participating organisations continued with some form of reduced working time and a further 22% adapted the model rather than abandoning it. The sustained gains include improved life satisfaction, better sleep, higher physical activity, and stronger employer attractiveness – with financial performance remaining stable across the cohort.

Why this matters

A two-year follow-up showing 92% of participating employers maintaining some version of reduced hours is the strongest available evidence that the 4-day-week model is durable, not just a short-trial novelty. For German employers in 2026, this changes the question from “would it work?” to “why aren’t we already doing it?” – and the data weakens the standard objection that financial performance would suffer.

For German remote workers, the implication is that compressed-hours and reduced-hours arrangements are likely to spread to more sectors during 2026-2027, particularly in the knowledge-economy roles that already lend themselves to distributed work. The combination of remote/hybrid arrangements plus reduced hours represents one of the clearest “post-pandemic settlement” outcomes anywhere in Europe.

What to watch: which sectors take up the 4-day-week model fastest in Germany, and whether any 4-day week provisions appear in collective bargaining agreements over the next round of negotiations. The University of Münster team continues to track outcomes – the next reporting wave is the one to watch for further employer adoption.