Well known for their innovative approach to working days, one Swedish city councillor has come up with an original reason to give employees more time off: sex.
Per-Erik Muskos, a 42-year-old city councillor for the northern town of Overtornea, has proposed a one-hour paid break from work in order to couples to go home and have sex.
He says his suggestion will give Swedes the chance to spend more time together, something that is lacking in todays society, and attain a better work-life balance.
“There are studies that show sex is healthy,” Muskos told AFP after presenting his motion. Although he acknowledged the fact that there was no guarantee that employees would use this hour to work on their relationships, he said that it was important that employers trusted their employees.
“You can’t guarantee that a worker doesn’t go out for a walk instead,” he added, but said there was “no reason” why his motion wouldn’t pass.
This comes on the back of a recent study by the National Sleep Foundation that found that one in every four married or cohabiting Americans say they’re so sleep deprived they’re too tired to have sex.
European countries have begun experimenting with shorter, more life-friendly work days, with Scandinavian countries such as Sweden often at the forefront of these changes. In January, nurses in Gothenburg became part of a two-year pilot scheme that introduced a six-hour working day.
In France, new workplace directives that came into force in January gave workers the right to ignore after-work emails till the next day.
According to a recent study, working hours are shortest in Finland and France, followed closely by Sweden.