Spain’s Ministry of Labor began discussions with employers and unions this Thursday to trim the maximum working day to 1,000 hours annually, equivalent to about 38.5 hours per week from the current 40. The Minister of State for Labor, Joaquin Pérez Rey, indicated that no final agreement exists yet and preliminary conclusions are still open, as social actors were invited to share perspectives and nothing more at this stage.
In essence, the move aims to establish a multilateral dialogue framework. On one side, the Labor Party will convene periodically to negotiate with employers and unions, while on the other, social actors will meet in bilateral, sector-by-sector discussions that run in parallel. “Our objective is to make timekeeping an effective tool” and to reduce the working week to 37.5 hours by 2025, Pérez Rey summarized.
Business leaders arrived at the meeting expressing initial frustration yet a willingness to engage, arguing that the dialogue process already gave the impression of a predetermined outcome since the working day will be shortened this year regardless of deal status. The focus will likely be on how these changes are implemented, with the negotiation turning on these implementation details. Pérez Rey praised the atmosphere of negotiation and welcomed the participation of CEOs and their teams, noting that the discussions lasted roughly three hours and that there was broad approval to begin formal work.
The regulation’s reference point—the maximum working day for workers—has not shifted in four decades. Even as collective agreements reduce hours in some sectors, the scope of the reform is sizable. Data from the Ministry of Labor show that more than half of employees, about 55 percent, are covered by a collective agreement with a weekly schedule exceeding 38.5 hours. The reform will require employers and unions to reassess large portions of collective agreements to align with this new standard, as advocated by the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz. The coalition government has also pledged to push the timeline toward 37.5 hours by 2025.
Officials described sector-level negotiations on working time as a response to fifteen years of stagnation. The foreign affairs minister noted that austerity policies have ended and stressed that limited progress on reducing hours via collective agreements prompted the government to drive the process forward. While some aspects of the reduction path will be left to the discretion of employers and their unions within each sector, the broader aim remains clear: a shorter workweek, with precise implementation details negotiated in dialogue across sectors. [Source: Ministry of Labor]