The increase in costs associated with the reduction of working hours pushes away an agreement with CEOE

The parliamentary group headed by Yolanda Díaz’s platform, Sumar, has rescued this Thursday the debate on the reduction of the maximum working day that the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy had cooled while they closed other issues such as the unemployment benefit reform and the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage. However, once the first of these milestones has been sold, the employment manager’s team rescues the measure with the aim of making a first reduction to 37.5 hours in 2024 and then advancing to 32 hours through social dialogue. However, the possibility of achieving this goal with the help of employers is increasingly distant due to its impact on labor costs.

The proposal presented by the coalition on the left in the PSOE states that the reduction in working hours will not have a parallel cut in salary, which would translate into an implicit salary increase for workers and an increase in salary costs for workers. that companies must face per hour worked. A change that does not convince CEOE, as several of its representatives have expressed, and even less so if it is done “behind the social dialogue” as they denounced upon learning of the coalition government’s agreement. “There is the possibility of exploring new distribution formulas between work time and rest or leisure time, but not as a consequence of a legal imposition but through collective bargaining,” they defended then.

The parties that make up the Government had agreed to reduce the maximum working day to 38.5 hours in 2024 and 37.5 hours in 2025, although Sumar advocates reaching this first objective next year through a modification of the Workers’ Statute. At the same time, they propose opening a parallel social dialogue table to advance towards a four-day or 32-hour week. After the criticism expressed by the employers and the unions, the Minister of Labor assured that any step taken by her department would be accompanied by a negotiation with these actors, but the positions between the union representatives and the business representatives are so far apart that today Doing it through an agreement seems utopian.

Social contributions have risen 7.2%

Beyond the salary increase implicit in the change, employers hide behind the contribution increases applied in the pension reform, which created the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI) and the solidarity quota for income. . higher at the same time that the contribution base for these salaries was raised. The last publication of the INE, based on data from the third quarter of the year, indicated that the labor cost per worker had grown by 5% driven by non-wage costs that had experienced an increase of 7.2%, the same as contributions. mandatory contributions to Social Security – more than salaries, which show an increase of 4.5% -.

BBVA Research suggests that if this reduction in the maximum working day is finally approved, it must be accompanied by a reduction in the price. “In the short term, compensatory measures aimed at reducing non-wage costs, such as social contributions, and encouraging cooperation between companies and workers would contribute to accentuating the positive effects of the reform and minimizing the negative ones,” they recommend in the analysis signed by the economists Alfonso Arellano, Juan Ramón García and Camilo Ulloa. “The quotations raise the cost of production and the prices of goods and services of domestic origin, including those exported. the Spanish economy.”

This negative impact could translate into subtracting six tenths from the annual GDP growth over the next two years and eight tenths from employment, which is why it suggests that before approving it, the potential effects of the proposal be evaluated in detail and that Social agents in both design and execution. Precisely, the PSOE was in favor of changes in the working day taking place within collective bargaining, as defended by the President of the Executive Pedro Sánchez, and the then Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá. However, for its partners it was a priority that it be addressed by law and this was reflected in the coalition government’s agreement.

Employers also supported this approach, since the 37.5-hour day is already a reality in many agreements in Spain, but they rejected doing it on a general basis. “The regulation of working hours must be dealt with sector by sector and company by company, analyzing in each case whether there is sufficient productivity margin and the organizational needs of the employers,” read the statement from CEOE and Cepyme. “Doing it in another way, and outside the framework of Social Dialogue, means an increase in costs for companies, which is added to the higher production, financing and other costs (contributions, increase in the SMI) that they were already suffering. “, they condemned the workers’ representatives.

Furthermore, this does not seem the best time to open the debate, since both sides of the social dialogue have expressed their clear dissatisfaction with the Government in recent days after a subsidy reform was approved in which they have not been taken into account. count your contributions. Employers and unions also condemn that the Ministry of Labor has included the prevalence of regional level agreements over sectoral ones in the same decree, as the PSOE had committed to do in its investiture pact with the PNV. The CEOE reproached the portfolio led by Díaz that once the labor reform was approved with its support, “it has radically skipped the agreements reached in the social dialogue.”