The percentage of workers who are willing to earn less money at the end of the month in order to devote less time to their work has doubled over the past decade. Although in 2013 only 3% of Spanish workers, when asked by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), said that they want work fewer hours “with a proportional reduction in income”, The latest data collected shows that this proportion has risen to almost 6%. At the same time, the active population increased by 23%. In absolute terms, ten years later, more than 1.2 million people express a desire to reduce their working hours through wages. In the same quarter of 2013 there were 515,000.

The government agreement between PSOE and Sumar to invest Pedro Sánchez has brought the debate about reducing working hours back to the fore. For the current acting vice president and leader of the coalition of leftist parties, Yolanda Diaz, this “It’s a shame” to have “the same work day for the last 100 years.” In fact, the last change to the normal working day was carried out by the socialist Felipe Gonzalez in 1983, when he established its duration at 43 or 42 hours, depending on whether it was a continuous or divided day.

In any case, government partners now have agreed to reduce working hours to 37.5 hours per week no wage cuts until 2025 – this is a big step forward, unprecedented in the last 40 years, and also unexpected from a political point of view. Diaz herself has categorically rejected the proposal to reduce the working day to a four-day week, or 32 hours, which Mas Pais has tried to push in recent years. Iñigo Errejón’s party eventually agreed with the PSOE to launch the pilot project as an experiment for a four-day week, but was eventually forced to implement it with the help of the Ministry of Industry, led by socialist Reyes Maroto. ., due to lack of cooperation from the Labor Party.

Those willing to work more hours have almost halved

INE’s Active Population Survey indicates that not only are more workers choosing to reduce their working hours to have more free time, but the number of those wanting to work more has almost halved over the same period. , increasing from 16% of workers to almost 9%. On the other hand, the share of those who say they don’t want to change their routine fell from 85% in 2013 to 80% this year, still representing the vast majority of the total – almost 14 million people work here today.

To date, more eight million employees -most-, almost 10 million members in total, they work 40 hours or more a week. In particular, there are more than 8.8 million of those who say they devote 40 to 49 hours to paid work, and there are another million who work more than 50 hours. In contrast, according to INE, almost 5 million workers work between 30 and 39 hours a week in their main job, which is closest to the 37-hour target.

In 24% of agreements signed this year, the working day is about 37.5 hours.

But this is a reality that appears to be slowly changing thanks to collective bargaining. This year, 3,110 collective agreements were concluded, of which 760 (24%) provide for working hours from 37.5 to 38.5 hours per week. Data coming from agreement statistics Labor ministries only collect collective agreements – both company and higher level – that were registered this year, but they already represent an important sample of the current measurement of this type of workday.

In contrast, 45% of signed agreements agreed to longer days: almost 1,000 were between 38.5 and 39.5 hours, 168 were between 39.5 and 40 hours per week, and 264 were over 40 hours. According to these data, this year at least 2.8 million workers would agree to days like the one Yolanda Diaz is now demanding for all workers.

For the moment we will have to wait to find out what the measure is, which, once it became known, business reviews Even before its details became known, “we will have to see how companies and self-employed workers can survive,” said Lorenzo Amor, president of the Federation of Self-Employed Workers ATA. “They will have a negative impact on the activities of companies” and “are an attack on the constitutional role of social agents,” the CEOE said in a statement.

However, the real challenge will be to force workers to reduce the number of hours they actually devote to work beyond what is specified in their contracts. According to this newspaper, Spaniards make about 3 million trips every week. unpaid overtime work, 30% more than in 2019, despite the fact that registration has been mandatory since then. In this regard, the Labor Inspectorate is asking for more and more means to monitor compliance with labor laws, because otherwise, they say, the laws are useless.