Raise your hand if you’re currently working five days a week and would hate dropping down to four. No one? A four-day workweek would be awesome and State College is the perfect place to test it out.

Here’s why.

State College is already one of the most flexible places to work in the country. The top five employers of Centre County are:

1. Penn State
2. State Government
3. Mount Nittany Medical Center
4. State College Area School District
5. Glenn O. Hawbaker

Those five employers represent nearly 40% of the local workforce and of them:

• Penn State offers a generous five weeks of paid vacation for full time staff.
• Many employees at Mount Nittany, like other hospitals, work nontraditional hours, such as 12 hour shifts, three-days a week.
• SCASD is not in session in the summer and winter break.
• And Hawbaker construction crews see a similar seasonality to their work.

State government employees work a traditional work week but a lot of our town already works a flexible schedule. And at least a few private companies have already implemented schedules and perks that veer off from the 9 to 5. Truck cover manufacturer Diamondback Covers in Philipsburg pays its workers a full wage to work 36 hours a week. State College-based software developer West Arete gives all of its employees a fully paid, fully unplugged — and mandatory — sabbatical each year.

Studies show employees are just as productive, if not more productive, when they have less time to finish the same amount of work. In the 1930s,...

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