As gas and energy prices soar, employers look to a compressed work week as a way to save money. Savings extend also to employees but a ten-hour, four-day week has both problems and benefits. While employees enjoy a longer weekend and a shorter commute, they also encounter problems with child care, and personal fatigue. Currently 38 percent of firms allow a compressed week for some workers ? only 8 percent allow it for all employees. Many companies regard the current compression as an experiment, useful for testing the waters of increasing savings while keeping productivity up.
See "Firms squeeze the work week", Marilyn Gardner, The Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2008