Municipal staff in Gothenburg will act as guinea pigs in a proposed push for six-hour workdays with full pay, with hopes that it will cut down on sick leave, boost efficiency, and ultimately save Sweden money.
哥德堡政府工作人员作为小白鼠正接受全薪六小时工作制测试，希望借此减少员工请病假、提高工作效率，以缩减国家开支。
"We think it's time to give this a real shot in Sweden," Mats Pilhem, Left Party deputy mayor of Gothenburg, told The Local.
“我们认为是时候给瑞典一个改变的机会了。”哥德堡左翼党副市长马茨•皮尔赫姆对Local网站说。

He explained that the municipal council would use two different departments - a test group and a control group, in essence. Staff in one section will cut down to six-hour days, while their colleagues in a different section stick to the ordinary forty-hour week. All employees will be given the same pay.
他解释道，政府部门会分成两部门——大致分为一个测试组和一个实验对照组。测试组工作人员工作时长缩减至六小时，而另一部门的员工则仍需坚持原本的每周工作四十小时。所有员工都会得到相同报酬。
"We'll compare the two afterwards and see how they differ. We hope to get the staff members taking fewer sick days and feeling better mentally and physically after they've worked shorter days," he said.
“我们会在测试后进行比较，看看他们有何不同。我们希望通过此举能让员工减少病假，身心更加健康。”他说。
Pilhem said he hoped the move would create more jobs, as he had seen evidence that longer shifts entailed less efficiency. In some sectors, such as social care, the problem was not staff shortages, he claimed, but people working inefficiently over longer shifts.
皮尔赫姆希望此举能创造更多工作，因有证据显示长时间工作会导致低效。在其他如社会福利等部门，问题不在于缺少雇员，而在于长时间工作制度中员工的工作效率较低。
He added that a Gothenburg car factory had recently tested the six-hour method and the results were encouraging.
他还说哥德堡一家汽车生产商已经测试了六小时工作制，效果喜人。
The opposition in the western city has reacted strongly to the test run.
西方城市的反对派对测试的进行反应强烈。
Maria Rydén of the Moderates, who also sits on the city council, told the Metro newspaper that the proposal was a "dishonest and populist ploy" with elections just around the corner. She added that she didn't think such a move would have any impact on quality.
同在市政局的温和派Maria Rydén对《每日邮报》透露道，这个建议只是因大选在前而推出的虚假且有民粹主义的策略。她并不认为这种改变会对员工质量有任何影响。
But Pilhem said the plan was nothing new.
但皮尔赫姆说到这项计划并不算新。
"We've worked a long time on this, we've not planned it to be an election thing," he said. "These people are always against shortening hours."
“我们已经研究它很久了，并不是为选举而计划的，”他说：“这些员工一直反对缩短时间。”
Various parts of Sweden have experimented with shorter working hours before, but the concept has yet to take off.
瑞典各处此前都开始过缩短工时的试验，但尚未普及。