Spain offers to pay companies testing a 4-day work week
(VOVWORLD) - Spanish companies with fewer than 250 workers have one month to apply for a pilot government scheme to reduce their work week to four days with full pay, the administration said on Thursday.
The 9.6 million euro scheme will focus on small and medium-sized industrial companies, the government said.
Around 25% to 30% of employees will work at least 10% fewer hours on full salary.
Employers will be partially compensated for up to 200,000 euros per applicant and the consultancy costs of designing new work schemes.
In Britain, employees at 61 companies worked an average of 34 hours across four days from June to December last year on full salaries in the world's largest trial of a four-day work week so far.
Most participants decided to retain it in what activists hailed as a breakthrough for a better work-life balance.