The 40-hour work week has been applied in Spain since 1983. Previously, there was the 48-hour work week as a result of the 1919 “La Canadiane” strike, which represented working six days a week. It is difficult to make a comparison using the weekly schedule as a starting point, since then the incidents that occur with the festivities are not taken into account. Therefore, one should try to do the annual calculation to be able to compare. In this case it would be 52 weeks of five days to eight hours, total 2,080 hours. To this, 22 working days of vacation would have to be deducted, plus 14 of official holidays, which would give 282 hours that would leave the annual total at 1,792 hours, which divided by 52 weeks would represent an average total of 34.46 hours per week.
If we want to compare, we can say that the advisory commission on collective agreements, a body dependent on the Ministry of Labor, placed the annual working day for 2022 at 1,740.46 hours, therefore, we would already be working fewer hours compared to 1,792. This would mean that in Spain an average of 7.04 hours/day would be worked and therefore, below the established eight hours. If we compare the situation in Europe, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece are above the average of the countries of the European Union, led by the Netherlands with 30.4 hours per week, followed by Denmark 33.4 and Norway 33.8 , which destroys the myth that southern European countries work less than those in the north. To all this we must add that what is intended now is to work fewer hours, earning the same amount and that would represent an increase in the cost of all production and a confrontation between employers and companies.
If what was done was to reduce hours, lowering salaries, there would be less production, so less money would be collected, which would cause less to be spent and therefore, impoverishment of the country and non-acceptance by the world of work.
Finally, Spain is one of the few countries that has not created a National Productivity Council, as recommended by the Council of Europe since September 2016. The solution to all this, although it may seem magical, is to work less, while earning the same amount. , but also producing the same or more than now, and therefore, maintaining the country's GDP, and that happens, oh miracle!, through A.I. Making the most of all new technologies and, above all, the immense possibilities of artificial intelligence is the path that should be followed to achieve a significant reduction in working time to the satisfaction of everyone.
