Industry will launch aid to companies that promote the 4-day weekly shift before July

To finance this pilot project, which aims to reduce the working day without loss of salary for workers, the General State Budget for 2022 includes an item of 10 million euros. However, this budget could be increased if the reception of the business fabric is good, according to Industry.

The project will grant public aid, on a competitive basis, for companies that voluntarily present a plan to reduce the working hours of their workers and will offer subsidies for the innovation of production processes, new hires and training resources, according to ‘Digital Economy’ .

According to the calculations of Más País, some 160 companies could take advantage of the incentives to reduce the working day to four days, which would benefit more than 3,000 employees in the first edition of the program.

One of the objectives with which this pilot experience was born is to assess the needs of the business fabric, whether it is the need for more personnel, consulting functions or planning tasks for its activity.

In this way, the project will offset these costs to the companies that benefit from the future call for aid, by giving them the incentive to rehearse without losses a measure that, according to Más País, will improve productivity despite reducing the working hours of employees .

The Passage of Belgium

The federal government of Belgium gave the green light in the early hours of last Monday to a reform of its labor market that will allow the hours of the working week to be concentrated in four days, instead of the current five.

It is a concentration of working hours, not a reduction, as the More Country project and the Government intend and as the CCOO and UGT unions defend, which aspire to a weekly working day of 32 hours.

In the case of Belgium, the change allowed by its labor reform will not imply a reduction in the hours worked, since Belgian workers will only be able to work one day less per week if they increase the number of daily hours worked. Thus, the reform contemplates a maximum condition of 9.5 hours of work per day, extendable to 10 hours, prior agreement between the company and the unions.

Reduce the day, do not concentrate it

After the approval of the Belgian reform, CCOO warned that the 4-day working week without reducing the hours worked “in no case favors conciliation”, so the debate should focus on the reduction and redistribution of the working week.

Applying the Belgian reform to the Spanish case, where weekly working hours are 40, would imply working days of 10 hours, to which commuting and lunch would have to be added.

“This measure does not favor conciliation even if you win a day, it is impossible to reconcile like this. In addition, this type of measure can have a very negative impact on the health of workers, both in terms of physical and mental health”, warns from CCOO.

For its part, the UGT has stated that it “will fight” so that the 32-hour workweek “becomes a reality in the short term for all workers.”

Pepe Álvarez’s union has made it clear that the Belgian reform “has nothing to do” with what the organization defends: reducing the weekly working day to 32 hours.