EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, Luxembourger Nicolas Schmit, here in the European Parliament, June 2021. JULIEN WARNAND / AFP
More productivity, employee well-being… and a possible solution to the labor shortage? The idea of the four-day week is progressing – it is already being tested in some companies. EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, suggests using it in sectors that are “difficult to recruit”. [des employés] ” he said in an interview with the Portuguese press agency Lusa, published on Thursday, May 25.
Nicolas Schmit considers this to be “the biggest problem.” [dans l’Union européenne] is not so much unemployment’, but rather the lack of labor force. “Many industries are desperate for employees and can’t find them because people don’t want to work there or don’t have the right skills,” he says. “They have to become more attractive,” said the Luxemburger, stressing that “it’s something that’s gradually progressing (…) because the new generations have a certain vision of work-life balance”. However, he warns that there is “no common position” within the EU on this issue.
According to Schmit, this approach requires “negotiations between the social partners” and takes the example of Germany, where the country’s largest trade union, IG Metall, pleaded for several years for a generalization of the four-day week in the metallurgical sector.
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This declaration comes at a time when Portugal wants to start a pilot project around the four-day week on a voluntary basis and without loss of income. 46 companies have expressed an interest in implementing this reform – most of them with up to ten employees, five of them employ more than 1,000 people and are active in the consulting, scientific activities and technologies or information and communication sectors.
In France, some companies – still largely in the minority – have introduced the four-day week, which is also being tested in certain public services such as Urssaf or the National Pension Fund (CNAV).
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