Spanish cabinet approves plan to cut workweek to 37.5 hours

The Spanish government has approved draft legislation to reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 37.5 hours.

The bill – greenlighted during Tuesday's cabinet meeting and backed by major unions UGT and CCOO – now moves to the Spanish Congress, where it currently lacks the required support to pass.

Pro-independence Junts announced their opposition to the bill on Monday, but the party has left the door open to negotiations.

At a press conference following the cabinet meeting, Spain's Second Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz called on the opposition parties – especially the conservative People's Party (PP) and Junts – to act with "responsibility," insisting that "there's room for negotiation."

Calling the measure "a matter of justice," Díaz said it will make reduced hours "the general rule, without privilege or exception, for all workers."

“We're normalizing something that should have arrived in Spain much earlier," she added.

The Ministry of Labor reached agreement with the UGT and CCOO unions in December 2024, while the policy has been rejected by the business association CEOE.

Congress approval not guaranteed

Following cabinet approval, the bill faces its first hurdle in the Spanish Congress – a vote on whether to allow the bill to be processed.

If it passes, the proposal will go to the Labor Committee for possible amendments before heading to a full vote in Congress, and then the Senate.

If finally approved, companies will have until the end of the year to adapt to the new timetable.

The votes of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialists, along with their coalition partners, Yolanda Díaz's Sumar, won't be sufficient for the bill to pass.

The government will need to persuade either the PP (the largest party in Congress) or all the parties that voted for Sánchez to be reelected in 2023.

Among the latter, Junts are likely to be the sticking point.

Their Congress spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, said on Monday that the government has not been willing to negotiate "even a comma."

With the current wording of the bill, Nogueras said, "the biggest winner is the Spanish state, which continues to drain our small and medium businesses and self-employed workers to fill Madrid's black hole."

12.5 million workers affected

According to the Ministry of Labor, the reduction in working hours will benefit 12.5 million private-sector workers – 10.5 million full-time and 2 million part-time.

More than half of these workers are concentrated in four sectors: retail, manufacturing, hospitality, and construction.

Responding to criticism from business groups, Díaz noted that corporate profit margins in hospitality have risen 105% since 2009 and 35% since 2019; in retail, 34% since 2009 and 24% since 2019; and in agriculture, 117% since 2009 and 36% since 2019.

Catalonia is the Autonomous Community expected to benefit most from the reform, with 2.2 million affected workers, followed by Madrid (2.05 million) and Andalusia (2.03 million), according to government data.

Catalan government fully supportive

Catalan government spokesperson Sílvia Paneque expressed full support on Tuesday for the workweek reduction. Speaking at a press conference, Paneque framed the measure as part of the Spanish government's broader goal of improving workers' lives.

"Anything that advances labor rights is a step in the right direction," she said, noting that initiatives such as this one, along with the increase in the minimum wage, "have been shown to have a positive effect" on the labor market, "on productivity, and on Catalonia's employment system."