To counter the stress and fatigue that workers are likely to suffer, Spain’s progressive party Mas País has proposed cutting one extra day off the work week, giving the workers a three-day weekend. -work. Spain is the first country in Europe to launch this trial which is a 3-year pilot project that will use 50 million euros ($ 59 million) from the European Union’s major Covid-19 recovery fund to compensate at least 200 mid0size companies, as they adopt the 32-hour work week pattern.
Which three-year pilot project did Mas Pais recommend?
Interestingly, employees do not lose their pay because they get one more day off. Hector Tejero, a lawyer with the Mas Pais in Madrid has been summoned by the Associated Press saying that while the reorganization will lead to a real net reduction in working hours, the full-time contract salaries will go to keep. The money under the three-year pilot project will also be directed towards subsidizing additional costs per employer in the first year, after which they reduced government support to 50 per cent and 25 per cent. 100 the remaining two years – a plan released by the Mai Pais suggests.
‘One rule may not apply to all relevant methods’
“The project in place will monitor whether we can improve the competitiveness and productivity of our companies and employees. It does not aim to use European money for Spaniards to work less,” he explained. Tejero. While there are arguments in favor of the test, critics such as Carlos Victoria at the ESADE School of Business have warned that this single rule does not apply to all methods likely to apply to all sectors. . “There may be businesses or economic sectors where a reduction in working hours will not lead to productivity gains,” said the research economist.
A study in the Cambridge Journal of Economics published earlier this year predicted that if working hours were cut by 35-40 per cent in 2017, GDP would have grown by 1.5 per cent and nearly 560,000 people would be employed. A company in the south of Spain – Software Delsol in 2020 invested 400,000 euros in one such project to reduce working hours for 190 employees. The company saw a 28 percent reduction in absenteeism while employees used their days off to visit banks or see a doctor. Sales of Delsol software also rose 20 percent in 2020 and no employee has suspended the company since then, the Journal said.
‘Spain needs to consider repairing the country’s abusive labor market’
However, many experts believe that, in the aftermath of Covid-19, where economies are suffering, Spain needs to consider fixing the country’s abusive labor market which is slowing down one of the unemployment rates are highest in Europe and are being criticized for low paid jobs. Mas Pais, on the other hand, argued that “it is better to try first and decide again on how to scale it, or whether it should be done at all.”