Lisbon, June 24, 2024 (Lusa) - The final report of a pilot project for a four-day working week in Portugal, prepared by Portuguese academics based in the UK, suggests as means to encourage its implementation the granting of tax incentives to companies or exempting them from some bureaucratic obligations.
Creating a more favourable tax regime to encourage this new way of working could be done by reducing taxes or granting tax credits on a temporary basis, or by providing direct subsidies or financial incentives to companies, suggest the coordinators of the study, which was published on Monday.
In the final report of the four-day week pilot project, Pedro Gomes, professor of economics at the University of London, and Rita Fontinha, professor of strategic human resource management at the University of Reading, point out three axes - experiment, incentivise, legislate - and the measures that can be taken in each, on the way to the four-day week.
Under the reform, there would be a reduction in weekly working hours, without a corresponding reduction in salary. This change has been applied in practice over the last few months by 41 companies experimenting with the four-day week in Portugal, 21 of which are coordinating the start of the test through the pilot project in June 2023.
In terms of stimulating uptake, in addition to incentives at company level such as those already mentioned, the study also suggests incentives aimed at particular groups of workers, such as allowing the four-day week for parents with children under the age of one or two or for workers over the age of 50.
The authors also point to incentives at sectoral level, namely the creation of tax incentives in sectors that agree to reduce working hours.
In terms of legislation, the suggestions include provisions in the labour code that regulate the four-day week in its different forms, with the authors stressing that it is "crucial that this stage precedes the formulation of tax incentives" and that some of the companies interested in the project have not moved forward due to the lack of an adequate legal framework.
Experimentation is another area highlighted, with the authors emphasising the need for the pilot project to be maintained or expanded in the private sector and to move towards tests in large companies and a pilot in the public sector.
"The four-day week will probably occur at various speeds and will be materialised in different formats in the various sectors," the document states, adding that in those where there are more advantages to adopting the four-day week, or more capacity to do so, "sectoral tests should be fostered" in which the unions should play a role in pressing for the tests in collective bargaining.
LT/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
