2.5 Million Hours of Unpaid Work a Week

SPAIN reduces unpaid “extra” hours by 700,000 in one year, though the figure continues to exceed 2.5 million unpaid hours.   

Since 2019, logging working hours has been mandatory in Spain, and one of the staggering results has been the issue of unpaid overtime hours. In Spain, it is common to work long days, leave the office late and not be able to disconnect even when workers have left the office.

Unpaid Hours Reduced by 700,000 Hours

From April to June of this year, the number of unpaid overtime hours has been reduced by almost 700,000 hours.

According to the latest EPA, in Spain, 2.5 million unpaid hours were worked per week, outside the normal working day. Spaniards worked 693,200 hours that were unpaid, though these figures are positive, as in the second quarter of 2022, 3.2 million unpaid hours per week were worked.

An Illegal Practice

Working unpaid hours is an illegal practice but is common, particularly in certain sectors such as technical workers and those in education, who work 1.1 million unpaid hours a week. Support technicians and science workers rack up 849,600 hours per week.

With increased rates of employment and reduced unemployment levels, the Ministry of Labour released a statement saying that “it is a priority of the Ministry to monitor that the legislation is complied with in this matter.” Inspections of working hours increased by around 20% in 2022 and the amount of fines was doubled, which amounted to nearly €2.5 million.

Will it Change?

During Sumar’s July electoral campaign, the current Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, promised that if she won she would establish a law that the maximum working week should be no longer more than 37.5 hours per week. In their electoral program, they stated that they hoped to achieve a reduction to 32 hours a week. However, if the figures from INE, the National Statistics Institute, are anything to go by, they show that Spain still has a long way to go.