There is much debate in Spain about total working hours, usually aimed at revealing employment records over recent months. Two fortuitous realities prompted this conversation. Spain’s labor market employs so many people: 21.27 million, according to the latest active population census. However, the total number of hours worked (608 million) did not break any records. Compared to the third quarter of 2008, employment increased by 3.5% and working hours decreased by 3.8%. This means that the average working hours of each employee are decreasing year by year. But this is not just happening in Spain, according to a recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) focusing on European labor markets. Furthermore, it points out that men and students are clearly behind this trend towards shorter working hours.
“Three years after the coronavirus crisis, employment and total hours worked have fully recovered, but average hours worked per worker have not yet recovered,” the authors say. Analyzing the decline in average working hours in EuropeSo we’re comparing current numbers to pre-pandemic numbers, but we’re also looking at historical numbers. They say the trend is “primarily structural rather than cyclical, and is an extension of a long-term trend that predates COVID-19” and could be reversed in the future. It concludes that the gender “appears to be low.”
As a report based on Eurostat data highlights, total working hours in Europe are now similar to, and in some cases less than, 2019, but this is a This does not apply to the median working hours, which is just under 37 hours per person. week. This decline in working hours was preceded by decades of similar developments. “Average working hours in developed countries have been in a long-term decline since the 19th century, with Germany, for example, roughly halving between the 1870s and the 2000s.More broadly, average working hours across OECD countries have , which declined by about 0.5% per year from the 1870s to the early 2000s.
The decline in average working hours is concentrated among three groups: young people, men in general, and men with young children in particular. “For young people, an increase in educated part-time workers may explain the decline. Among men in general, including men with young children, both full-time and part-time workers A decline can be seen across […] “This finding is surprisingly consistent across all European countries,” the IMF study shows. “The decline in actual working hours is occurring in parallel with the decline in desired working hours,” the authors write (Diva Astinova, Romain Duval, Niels Jakob H. Hansen, Ben Park, Ippei Shibata, Frederick Toscani) believes that these reductions will have the following effects: This is due to personal preferences among these employee groups.
This analysis highlights that men continue to work more hours on average (39.9 hours) than women (34.7 hours). “However, this gender gap has narrowed over time, as has the gender gap in employment rates.” Behind this phenomenon is the fact that women continue to take on the majority of childcare duties, usually out of obligation. Additionally, working hours for women with children have increased slightly. In Spain, women make up 73% of the workforce, even though they make up less than half of the workforce. Of the total number of employed people who work part-time due to caregiving or family obligations, 89% are women. And 71% of people do not work a full day because they cannot find such an arrangement.
An IMF study focusing on other demographic groups found that older workers (age 55 to 64) and older workers (age 65 and over) are “lower in employment as effective retirement ages have risen in most European countries.” It also emphasizes that the market share is increasing. However, their average working hours have also decreased. ”
The study also points out that the reduction in working hours is more pronounced in rich countries than in countries with lower GDP. “These results are consistent with the dominant role of income effects, rather than substitution effects, in determining workers’ labor supply in aggregate, as widely documented in the literature. A look at Eurostat’s current tense data shows this reality. People living in Serbia work an average of 42.2 hours per week. In the Netherlands, this figure is 31.1 hours.
The report therefore expects that average working hours in European countries will continue to decline “at different rates in different countries depending on the path of economic convergence”, depending on productivity and wage growth. The more productive and value-added economic activity is, the more pronounced the contraction is expected to be. According to the document, “in the medium term, most economic forecasts, including the IMF, expect modest increases in productivity in economies close to the technological frontier, i.e. developed Europe,” and therefore reductions in working hours. It will be “modest.” The IMF warns that in the long term, artificial intelligence and measures adopted to stop global warming will play a key role.
In a coalition agreement, Spain’s PSOE and Smar pledged to shorten the normal working day from the current 40 hours to 38.5 hours in 2024 and 37.5 hours in 2025. In doing so, Spain will join several European countries that have officially reduced working hours. However, the 40-hour work week remains the most widespread standard.
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