SMEs can now opt for support for the four-day working week

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The Industry pilot project will start next week, which will finance the reduction of working hours with a maximum of 150,000 euros

The pilot project for the introduction of the four-day working week in small and medium-sized Spanish industrial companies will start next week, as announced by the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, calling for support of up to €150,000 to participate in this project. In fact, the ministry is already working, Maroto said, with a number of companies that have welcomed the introduction of the shortened work week. The minister pointed out that the conclusions from this trial period will determine whether it will be extended with a “more ambitious policy”.

SMEs that shorten the working day by at least 10% without reducing their employees’ wages and maintain this situation for at least two years can receive public support of up to €150,000. The agreement between the government and Más País, the political formation led by Íñigo Errejón, to approve the general state budget for 2022, established a 10 million euro game to study the implementation of the 32-hour work week, which will allow subsidization up to 66 companies if they have all received the maximum support, although these will be determined according to the number of employees and the costs borne by the company. However, Más País estimated that up to 160 companies and some 3,000 employees could benefit.

The ministerial regulation project, which will be published shortly, was submitted for public consultation last June and set the objectives of improving productivity, work-life balance, equal opportunities and the physical and mental health of employees.

Together with the reduction of working hours, companies will have to build in a series of organizational measures and production processes, as well as training actions, which will generate an improvement in productivity that will offset higher labor costs. The public support is intended to partly finance the wage costs of the staff affected by the short-time work, the training costs related to the optimization of the working time of the employees affected by the implementation of the pilot project, and the costs of external collaborations or internal personnel costs necessary to design or redesign processes affected by the pilot project and directly related to the production of the company’s goods and services.

Indicators will also be established to measure the evolution of productivity. According to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), more working hours do not translate into higher productivity. This body measures the labor productivity of each country using the GDP per hour worked indicator, which takes into account the total number of hours worked. This data reflects that there are countries that work fewer hours yet are more productive. Spain is characterized by weak productivity growth, including work organisation.

From the Ministry of Industry, they emphasize that it has long been claimed to transform the economic system to bring about productivity improvements, promote reconciliation and promote equality and equal opportunities. The climate emergency and the crisis caused by the pandemic have further emphasized the need to implement these parameters, they explain, and telecommuting has sparked a debate about how to create new ways of business organization and new relationships at work. explored.

Some companies have offered their employees a four-day work week, such as Telefónica last July, which did not gain much support because it involved a pay cut.

Source: La Verdad

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