The cabinet passed the measure, which must now pass through parliament before it is expected to come into force by December.
Hotel, restaurant and domestic workers will benefit the most, according to an analysis from the Spanish government.
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Read MoreOne in three – or 4.4 million – of Spain’s 12.5 million employees will work an hour and a half less each week.
Companies have also voiced concern. Spain’s main employers’ association, CEOE, says that a shorter working week should not be imposed by law but through collective bargaining with each company able to adapt it to its specific needs.
[This is] really bad. For sectors like mine in the service-based economy it’s madness as it just pushes costs up even more and this will result in higher prices,” she told The i Paper.
Public service employees and financial workers are already covered by labour agreements that limit the working week to 37.5 hours (Photo: Morsa Images/ Getty Images)In Spain, employees can only work a maximum of 80 hours extra per year by law which leads to many hours being worked for no pay.
“More disincentives to work. I just don’t know how we’ll compete with the [United] States/ Asia,” she added.
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Read More“We are pleased because it will be beneficial to work less hours for the same pay. But I am worried that hotel workers will come under more pressure to do the same amount of work in less time,” she said.
Yolanda Díaz, the Spanish deputy prime minister and leader of the far-left Sumar party, made the plan to reduce working hours central to her party’s support for the minority government of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez.
“Work is not an end. We don’t live to work. This is the measure that the Spanish people are waiting for.”
The plan has caused a row inside the government, after the Socialist economy minister Carlos Cuerpo suggested last month that the cut in working hours should be delayed by a year to give small businesses time to adapt.
Ms Díaz hit back and said Mr Cuerpo “must decide on whose side he is on, that of the workers of this country who ask to live a bit better, or that of employers”.
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