MADRID – Spanish workers will enjoy a shorter working week for the same pay after the government passed a bill – prompting an immediate backlash from businesses who branded it “madness”.
The cabinet passed the measure, which must now pass through parliament before it is expected to come into force by December.
Under the plan, Spain will reduce working hours to 37.5 per week from the current 40, with no change in salary.
Hotel, restaurant and domestic workers will benefit the most, according to an analysis from the Spanish government.
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Read MoreHowever, teachers, public service employees and workers in the financial sector will not see any change in their working week because they are already covered by labour agreements which limit the working week to 37.5 hours.
One in three – or 4.4 million – of Spain’s 12.5 million employees will work an hour and a half less each week.
The change was welcomed by unions, but Spain’s central bank and a former economy minister have both warned that higher labour costs could fuel inflation and curb job creation.
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.
Kate Preston, a British businesswoman who runs seven restaurants in Barcelona, said the government plan would raise costs in the service industries.
[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)“Remember this is coupled with a yearly 80-hour cap on extra hours at work. So, if a person actually wants to work hard and earn more money [which is very common] they are restricted.”
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.
Ms Preston added that if a person had a second job, which is common in Spain, their income tax would also rise because of the limit on the hours in their main job.
“More disincentives to work. I just don’t know how we’ll compete with the [United] States/ Asia,” she added.
Luz Amparo Suaza Flores, 58, a representative of the Kellys Association of Catalonia, the Barcelona branch of a group which represents hotel workers, welcomed the limit on hours in the working week.
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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.
“We have to clean 16 rooms every day. Hotels may find it difficult to get staff with this pressure of work.”
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.
“This is a historic day. It has been two decades since any other European country has reduced the working week,” Ms Díaz told reporters in Madrid.
“Work is not an end. We don’t live to work. This is the measure that the Spanish people are waiting for.”
Spain was one of Europe‘s top economic performers last year, with growth driven by a tourism boom, migration and a strengthening labour market.
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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