The agreement signed between PSOE and Sumar envisages, among other measures, the reduction of the working day to 38.5 hours in 2024 and 37.5 hours a week in 2025. Although this seems like a utopia, working 37.5 hours a week is completely possible and is already used in many countries around us.
As we have already told you in Xataka, this measure does not have a significant impact on many sectors where a working day less than the limit of 40 hours per week is already used.
The maximum is 40 hours, but this is not true. Article 34 of the Workers’ Statute includes the maximum legal limit of the hours that can be worked per week and the manner of its distribution, regarding breaks between work days. However, this article leaves it in the hands of each industry sector to use their own working time through collective agreements.
The fact is that many of these collective agreements for the sector already include working hours of 38.5 and 37.5 hours per week, so, in fact, these employees are subject to the reduction of working hours agreed between the two political forces because of the next investiture. .no effect. Public sector employees have a 37.5-hour working day, except for positions with special dedication, as specified in Provision 2861 of 2019 published by the BOE.
The most common day in Spain. According to Eurostat data, the average weekly working time in Spain in 2022 will be 37.7 hours. That is, on average, that is the working day that most Spaniards will have in 2022, while the EU average is a working day of 36.6 hours per week. If we look back a decade the numbers have not changed much since 2013 European data tells us that the most common day is 38 hours.
Average working hours in Europe Source: Eurostat
If we look at our European neighbors, some countries exceed the maximum 40 hours allowed in Spain. Serbia (43.2 hours), Greece (41 hours) or Romania (40.2 hours) serve as a counter to the longest working day in Europe in the Netherlands (31.7 hours), Denmark (34.4 hours) ,or Germany (35.2 ttimes.
Is the 337.5-hourwork week a utopia? After the announcement of the reduction of working hours, some business sectors cried foul about the economic implications that the reduction of the working day to 40 hours per week would bring. Data from the National Statistics Institute leaves us with a very different picture.
Average weekly hours worked per sector. Source: INE
By type of activity, the companies dedicated to the supply of electricity, gas, steam ,and air conditioning are the only ones, due to the strategic nature of their working hours, are the only working hours of an average of 40.5 hours followed by the transport and logistics sector with 39.8 hours, the manufacturing industry with 39.5 hours and construction and mining with 39.4 hours and 39.1 hours respectively. The data shows us that sectors such as hospitality, education, commerce ,or car repair are de facto under that 337.5-hourday which seems unattainable.
Leave half an hour early or on a Friday in the summer. The reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours per week will not represent a large conversion as the change to a 4-day working week. In that case, the company must make a change to optimize the processes and improve productivity with the appropriate tools because, simply, you cannot do the work in five days out of four without change.
However, and although it may be paradoxical, in Spanish companies it is common to use this reduction of weekly working hours up to 37.5 hours in the summer months with something that is considered ian ntensive working day from June to September or, simply, on summer Fridays. .where you work half a day. In the end, the change meant leaving half an hour earlier every day instead of your usual time.
