The debate on the length of the working day has been ongoing for some time and has gained renewed importance following the agreements reached for the inauguration of the Head of Government. Along the same lines, arguments with which it is difficult to disagree are often repeated: “Reducing the working day has been a constant trend in the development of the labor market in recent centuries”, “technological advances allow us to organize our daily lives”, “in another way”, “to have more free time” we should aspire to work less”, “this free time allows employment to be created in other activities”, “Reducing the working day makes it possible to better reconcile personal life and working time”, “a happier employee is also more productive”… It is normal that we all desire to work less and spend more time on leisure (or something like that), although this does not necessarily result in less income. But legitimizing this claim with arguments like “Germans work less and live better than Spaniards” or “We are one of the countries in the European Union where people work the most hours per year” is as if it were enough to do this. It is nonsense to wish this or to simply confirm a rule.
I think you all know someone who works much less hours, earns more, and lives better. Perhaps he is a tenant who inherited a large estate from his parents and devotes his life solely to managing it (so he does not need to worry about the length of the working day). But he can also be a successful influencer with millions of followers on social networks, a prestigious sculptor or the most sought-after surgeon. The fact is that the work we do while working has a “market value”, so very hard work associated with great physical effort or poor working conditions does not always require better pay (in fact, the same thing often happens). on the contrary). When it comes to shortening the working day we must not forget the more than 880,000 employees According to the Active Population Survey, in the second quarter of this year they worked more than 6,000,000 hours of overtime per week in Spain and were only paid just over 60% of it (2,579,600 of those hours). not paid). It also applies to those working without a contract or with a contract that covers only part of the actual working day. Even freelancers who don’t have time limits. Also for workers who have to settle for part-time work because they cannot find full-time work. To many, the debate about reducing working hours will seem as trivial as the rentier living off inherited assets.
It is true that we cannot hope to solve all the imbalances in our labor market at once by postponing some changes until then. However, one gets the impression that people always choose what is easiest and that almost no progress is made on what is most decisive in the long run. It would be easy to introduce a change in legislation that would reduce the working day overall without taking into account the enormous diversity of different productive sectors, which increases in economies as complex and interconnected as current ones. ignoring the possibility of implementing non-face-to-face working methods It also varies a lot. It is much more difficult to promote far-reaching changes that would transform the Spanish economy to increase its productivity (allowing us to work, earn and live like Germans, for example).
Despite Germany does not have the highest productivity figures in the European Union, is often taken as a reference for its good overall macroeconomic performance in recent years, so in the attached table I have reflected in the attached table the difference in percentage between Germany’s productivity per hour worked and various countries of the European Union (including Spain, Spain). It is a very simple indicator, it has its shortcomings in terms of comparison (data I have not received from countries such as Norway, Ireland show very positive values as a result of high oil revenues in the first place, or the concentration of profits of multinational companies for tax reasons, in the second), but for these purposes it does not allow us to focus on the relevant issue It helps. Over the last few years, the European Union’s average productivity has been 18 to 20 percent lower than Germany’s; There is a huge disparity between countries such as France or Sweden that reach values close to Germany and others. Like Portugal or Romania, their records are slightly higher than the Germans. The difference between Spain and Germany reaches over 20%, with bad data in recent years. What this means is; For example, in 2022 the value of what was produced per hour worked by a Spaniard was on average 24.5% lower than the value of what a German produced.
It is therefore pointless to compare our working day with that of France or Germany.because working hours in these countries are much more productive than in Spain. What matters is not the number of hours, but the value of what is produced in each hour; This defines the standard of living that both employees and employers can aim for in the long term.
There is ample empirical evidence on the relationship between the size of companies and their productivity (higher as business size increases) or differences in productivity between different producers (lower in some sectors in which the Spanish economy specialises). While this is not meant to stigmatize any type of company or any economic activity (there are small companies or highly productive organizations in sectors with relatively low average levels that are exemplary in terms of productivity-improving strategies), we should think about convenience. sometimes with thisWe cling to the defense of some “traditional elements” of our productive fabric that are not actually very conducive. improving the overall productivity levels of our economy. Even more so when competitiveness and even the long-term sustainability of the business are based on the intensive use of “cheap labor” (including unpaid overtime, contracts that do not cover the entire working day, or jobs that are completely underwater). None of this is new, but it’s harder to solve than approving a rule that shortens the work day.