Why is Greece introducing a six-day working week?

Athens: While some countries in the world are considering a switch to a four-day working week, Greece is swinging in the opposite direction.

Its government is implementing a new six-day work schedule which falls under an employment law titled Law 5053/2023. The law is voluntary for companies to adopt, and the idea is to kick-start the economy in a country that is still emerging from the wreckage of Europe’s worst financial crisis in decades.

But as several countries and companies globally mull the idea of adopting four-day working weeks to improve employees’ quality of life, why is Greece instead adding an additional day?

Greece’s new law gives employers in some industries, including businesses that offer 24/7 services, the right to compel employees to work a sixth day in return for an additional 40 percent of their daily wage added to their regular daily wage on the extra working day.

So if a worker’s daily wage is $100, and they previously earned $500 in a week, they could now earn an additional $140, taking their weekly earnings up to $640.

The law is not mandatory. However, if a company does adopt it, it must apply uniformly to all its employees. Additionally, employers, under the law, are required to let their employees know at least 24 hours before any new shift begins, with no additional overtime beyond the eight hours allowed that day.

Employees will also be allowed to have a second part-time job and work up to 13 hours per day in total, allowing them to clock in 65 to 78 working hours per week.

Greece’s food and tourism sectors are not included in the new law, as they have previously been allowed to add a sixth working day, according to the Athens Labour Unions Organization, or EKA.

The policy came into effect on July 1. It was approved last September as part of a range of new labour laws announced by the right-leaning, pro-business government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“The nucleus of this legislation is worker-friendly, it is deeply growth-oriented,” Mitsotakis said before the Greek parliament endorsed the law in September 2023.

The Greek leader said both the country’s ageing population – an issue he described as a “ticking time bomb” – and a dearth of skilled workers have made the new scheme necessary. More than 500,000 Greeks have left the country since 2010, when the country’s debt crisis erupted, according to data from Eurostat.

That continuing crisis, coupled with the effects of Europe’s migration crisis – which Greece is deeply mired in – has crippled the country’s economy.

The new policy’s rationale is purely economic, as the aim is to drive up productivity and, therefore, Greece’s gross domestic product (GDP), said Elizabeth Gosme, the director of COFACE Families Europe, a rights-based alliance of organisations.

“From an economic point of view, [the policy] is not completely irrational,” Gosme told Al Jazeera.

George Dimitriadis, the youth general secretary of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), added that increasing productivity and making Greece more competitive on the global market are the main reasons the government has bucked the global trend towards four-day weeks to adopt the controversial new law.

“[The law] emerged during a period when the government was seeking ways to boost the economy and increase competitiveness,” he told Al Jazeera.

The government has also said that establishing formal rules about a six-day working week helps eradicate undeclared work and is meant to increase employees’ income, according to a statement from the country’s Ministry of Labour in June.

Gosme cautioned that, from a human wellbeing perspective, the new scheme could spell “disaster”.

Numerous studies have shown that overwork has a detrimental impact on one’s mental health and can often lead to burnout, she said.

According to Eurostat, Greeks already work longer hours than most Europeans.

Unions have been among the most vocal critics of the new policy with thousands of Greek public sector workers, including teachers, doctors and transport staff, having marched in Athens on September 21, 2023, a day before the law passed.

Trains and buses ran reduced services, state hospitals operated with emergency staffing and many schools closed that day as the protesters marched to parliament.

The GSEE said the law would lead to a deterioration of working conditions, increase professional burnout and reduce the quality of life for workers.

“This approach is regressive and does not align with modern trends that promote work-life balance and the improvement of workers’ wellbeing,” Dimitriadis said.

“While supporters argue that a six-day work week will increase productivity, the GSEE is concerned that the long-term consequences will be negative, leading to higher healthcare costs and reduced productivity due to burnout,” he added.

Moreover, the law will disproportionately affect women, who still take on the burden of childcare in a country that is largely traditional, Gosme said.

“Where do people – especially women – find time for a caring role?” she asked, adding that caregivers often need more flexible work hours.

Without access to professional care services – the situation for most people worldwide, she said – families have to step up, and some people, largely women, “may even be forced to stop working entirely”.

The new law, therefore, impacts not just workers’ wellbeing, but will also affect women’s equality, Gosme said.

Lawmakers from the main opposition, the left-wing Syriza party, have said the government is pushing “a secret agenda” against workers, while the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), has called the bill “monstrous”.

Workers’ rights campaigners are calling for greater dialogue with the government about this issue.

“The GSEE believes that an open dialogue between the government, employers and workers is essential to finding solutions that promote economic growth without sacrificing workers’ rights and wellbeing,” Dimitriadis said. “They propose alternative policies that enhance productivity through technological upgrades and worker training, rather than through increased working hours.”

While Greece is forging ahead with a longer working week, the trend elsewhere has been to adopt a shorter, four-day rota.

In 2022, Belgium passed legislation allowing workers to condense their hours into four days instead of five. In April this year, Singapore said workers could request shorter work weeks and more flexible hours.

Additionally, pilot schemes have been trialled in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Canada, Spain, Ireland and Iceland.

In the case of the UK, of the 61 companies who trialled a four-day working week, 54 have continued, with 31 saying they would make the move permanent.

Gosme explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many around the globe came to realise the importance of work-life balance, especially as people lost their jobs or were forced to work from home – some for the first time.

Many of the four-day working week trials began shortly after the pandemic, with shorter working weeks viewed as an essential component of moving towards achieving this balance.

In 2022, one of the world’s largest trials of shorter work schedules showed that workers who put in four days were just as productive as they were over a five-day week.

4 Day Week Global, the nonprofit that ran the trial with 33 companies and more than 900 employees in the US and Ireland, called it a “resounding success on virtually every dimension”.

The nonprofit’s four-day trial in the UK last year, meanwhile, saw a 71 percent decrease in employee burnout and a 35 percent average increase in revenues.

The organisation’s pilot schemes also showed positive results in non-Western economies, including South Africa and Brazil, where increases in both revenue and employee wellbeing were shown.

Additionally, the World Economic Forum has hosted multiple panels with advocates of the reform. During its annual meeting in Davos last year, Sander van ‘t Noordende, CEO of human resources consulting firm Randstad, said the four-day working week was “a business imperative”.

Six-day working weeks, meanwhile, have been common for some time within many companies in China, where some employees work under the practice dubbed “996” – working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Workers have died as a result of exhaustion from the practice, which is illegal in the country despite being relatively widespread, according to media reports.

Some firms in the US are also transitioning to six-day weeks by 2025, US business magazine Fortune has reported. And tech conglomerate Samsung implemented a new, longer-week schedule for its executives in South Korea in April this year.