Legislators Explore Alternative in a Six-Hour Workday
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Legislators Explore Alternative in a Six-Hour Workday

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Anamary Olivas By Anamary Olivas | Journalist & Industry Analyst - Tue, 08/16/2022 - 16:25

A new initiative of a 6-hour workday is being explored by the Mexican Senate to improve employee’s wellbeing, happiness and even productivity. The proposal consists in reducing the legal maximum of the weekly workday from 48 to 36 hours. Specialists perceive a favorable scenario to address the issue.

 

The four-day workweek has been vastly tested across the world and has even been permanently adopted by several companies after trials demonstrated that a shorter workweek improved employee’s wellbeing, happiness and even productivity. Nevertheless, some agencies have not favored this innovative schedule since in some industries you simply cannot take workdays off due to production and scheduling factors.

 

The initiative promoted by Senator, Ricardo Velázquez, seeks to guarantee decent working conditions in Mexico through a reduction in working hours. “In the case of Sweden, where this project was implemented on an experimental basis, the population of the country declared that there was a low request for sick leave, thus presenting better health conditions and increasing productivity by more than double, in this case, given that the working day is shorter, the workers dedicated themselves specifically to their activities without presenting bone times during them”, he argues

 

The traditional 8-hour workday, stipulated in article 61 of the Federal Labor Law in México, dates to the Industrial Revolution. This specific amount of time was based on the idea that the 24 hours in a day could be split evenly into three parts necessary for people’s lives: eight hours of labor, eight hours of recreation and eight hours of rest. However, recent studies show that productivity starts to decline after about 5 hours of work, hence leading to modern approaches to the work schedule.

 

Mexico is among the countries that have the longest work weeks in terms of hours within Latin America. The National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) for June reported a growth of more than half a million people in the salaried population that works more than 48 hours per week.

 

With the proposal being turned over to the Senate Labor and Social Welfare Commission for analysis, this strikes a conversation whether it is possible to implement the 6hour workweek in Mexico or will the predominant hard-working culture of the people result to stubborn to beat. It appears this isn’t the best moment as the rising inflation and an unpredictable economic state seem to be the present of the country.

Photo by:   Pixabay

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