The first pilot project in all of Spain to test the four day work week (or 32 hours per week) starts next week. The Ministry of Industrydirected by maroto kingswill publish this week the order according to which the tender is opened for SMEs in the sector industrial -and consultancies specialized in this activity- apply to receive aid of up to 150.000 euros if they agree to implement this organizational modality for a period of two years, as EL PERIÓDICO has learned.
The technicians from the Department of Industry have been working around the clock for several weeks, firstly to resolve and process the complex part of the electric car, and, in parallel, to comply with the commitment to remove the pilot from the four-day work week before finishing 2022. Maroto has complied with the times, this past Friday he signed the order that opens the contest for the distribution of aid and this will be published throughout this week.
It will be the first state experience of a four-day work week, since the Valencian government It has already activated a pioneering project on this topic for almost two years. Spain thus joins experiments to reduce the working hours of workers who are beginning to proliferate throughout Europe. The United Kingdom, for example, launched its own pilot in 2022 for 70 companies -as many as the Spanish one- and Portugal is also testing, although from the public sector.
The Spanish experiment is more guaranteeing for the worker, as it seeks to explore the virtues and possible drawbacks of working one less day without this entailing a cut in salary or a longer working day the rest of the time. And it is that Belgium, for example, has approved the possibility of working four days, but concentrating the hours that are not done on the rest of the working days. And in Spain there have been companies, such as Unequal o Telefónicawho have proposed on their own reductions in working hours, but which also imply (non-proportional) salary cuts.
Minister Maroto launches an initiative that was born in the negotiation of the General Budgets last year, when More Country decided to support the accounts in exchange for enabling a public budget to promote the four-day work week. Since then, the Ministry of Industry has led and outlined the pilot program, which will eventually cover between 60 and 70 companies, according to preliminary calculations.
10 million budget
The total budget will be 10 million euros and companies may receive aid of up to 150,000 euros to offset salary costs. That is, either to hire more people to cover the hours that are not done by the rest of the workforce or to sign profiles that allow internal reorganization to work less. In addition to this transfer to cover salary costs, the bases of the call contemplate other aid to pay for the training of workers, improve the productivity of the same and internal audits to evaluate the success or failure of the measures.
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The reorganization of work processes is key in the experiences of other countries for the correct implementation of the four-day work week. In order to eliminate downtime and improve the pace of work and efficiency in the rest, thus allowing less work and that this does not result in more stress o burning of the templates.
The aid will be distributed under the criteria of competitive competition, that is, whoever applies to receive it first and can prove that they meet all the requirements will first join the pilot. And once the budget is exhausted, the following applicants will be left out. Participating SMEs agree to implement the four-day (or 32-hour) work week among their workforces for a minimum of two years. And the productivity improvements that support this reduction in hours must be underway within a year. At the end of the pilot, the Ministry of Industry, which will collect the data, will prepare a report and evaluate the results.