After all, a four-day week can mean more working hours per day.

The pilot project will last six months, being reversible and voluntary and without causing financial consequences, and the state will support the transitional stage of companies at the technical and administrative level. This four-day week assumes a reduction in the number of working hours per week, but does not guarantee a change from the current 40 to 32 hours.

This Wednesday, the Portuguese government is presenting to the social partners a four-day-a-week pilot project to start next year in private sector companies, and then can be applied to public administration. The project will be presented at the Social Dialogue.

According to the executive branch, quoted by SIC Newsdepending on the level of satisfaction with the pilot project, this experience can be extended to the public sector in a second phase, and this transition phase requires the use of tools that evaluate the impact of this new measure, which is subject to various budgetary and legal constraints.

The third phase is expected to create favorable conditions that will allow testing “a more ambitious model, including a quasi-experimental design, in which a group of companies accepts the change, and another group will act as control,” according to the information. quoted SIC News. The experience in question cannot result in a reduction in wages and should result in a reduction in working hours per week.

However, employers consider the four-day work week untimely. Representatives from industry and trade argue that the country is not at the right time to apply this experience in practice, and accuse the government of trying to divert attention with this project from the real problems facing Portugal, such as, for example, increase in business costs Public.