Businesses, Cities Consider Four-Day Work Week

June 2, 2008 11:54 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN)- The rise in fuel prices is changing the way Americans have been living for decades. Going out of the window are 9-to-5 jobs and out-of-town vacations.

Businesses and local governments are succumbing to employee pressure to make the five-day workweek into four days of 10 hours each to save on gas. Forty years ago, the same suggestion was made during the first round of oil-price hike made by OPEC.

Birmingham, Ala. officially goes to a four-day week July 1. The city will remain on a five-day footing for departments that have public contact.

Sunday, road crews in Walsworth County, Wisc. and city hall employees in Avondale, Ariz. began the new schedule.

In May, a Society for Human Resource Management survey reported 26 percent of businesses had offered flexible schedules to help save gas. Other employers have permitted telecommuting.

Gas-conscious American drivers are also staying near home on weekends and opting for closer vacation destinations.

Other cost-cutting measures taken by vacationers include bringing packed meals in lieu of dining out. But even the price of packaged food has gone up as the U.S. food-related inflation reached a 20-year high.