I think a lot of the replies in the thread so far have focused on tech (understandably, this is HN after all) but that's missing something obvious - the 4 day week would apply to everyone.
In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers, factory workers, people who fill in the holes in roads, telephone support people, etc aren't contending with pointless meetings and busy work though. They can't do 40 hours of work in 32 hours by removing some of the hours they're not really working. What they do doesn't compress like that.
Consequently looking at this from the context of tech workers is far less interesting. The Japanese government isn't saying "Let's get rid of pointless meetings and busy work!" In tech removing the pointless nonsense isn't actually reducing the amount of real work people do. Instead, Japan is saying "Our country is wealthy enough and advanced enough that our people can actually do less work." That's fascinating.
If you see this as "removing the wasteful time spent on things that aren't useful like meetinga" then you've missed the point. It is that, but it's much, much more than that too.
In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers, factory workers, people who fill in the holes in roads, telephone support people, etc aren't contending with pointless meetings and busy work though. They can't do 40 hours of work in 32 hours by removing some of the hours they're not really working. What they do doesn't compress like that.
Consequently looking at this from the context of tech workers is far less interesting. The Japanese government isn't saying "Let's get rid of pointless meetings and busy work!" In tech removing the pointless nonsense isn't actually reducing the amount of real work people do. Instead, Japan is saying "Our country is wealthy enough and advanced enough that our people can actually do less work." That's fascinating.
If you see this as "removing the wasteful time spent on things that aren't useful like meetinga" then you've missed the point. It is that, but it's much, much more than that too.