Despite the fact that the Ministry of Labor is determined to make effective the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours per week next year, the negotiations with the employer remain stuck. The Spanish government is in a hurry to reach an agreement and has made one last offer: up to 6,000 euros in aid to micro-SMEs and November 11 as the deadline to reach an agreement with unions and employers. In the meantime, however, each sector has its say, and commerce – especially small businesses – is head-on against this reduction. The Trade sector of the employer Pimec concludes, based on a survey of its members, that this proposal “would put at risk the viability of more than half of the local establishments”.
For Mireia Anglada (fictitious name), who has a small flower shop with two workers, a reduction in working hours would pose a problem. To comply with this measure you have two options: hire a third person at least half-time to maintain sales but increasing staff costs, or hire no one and therefore sell less. In both cases, Mireia’s business will lose out. This situation can be extrapolated to any small, local and neighborhood business, which often has no more than five employees and juggles to survive in the face of competition from large supermarkets.
The survey by Pimec Comerç, in which more than 340 establishments participated, puts data to this situation: up to 67% of the shops surveyed believe that they would need to hire “at least one person part-time” if the reduction in day, and 12% think they would need “one or two”. In most cases, they would need to “substantially reorganize the workforce to maintain service quality and productivity.” In addition, 77% of the participants agree with “the necessary flexibility and adaptation of the measure, taking into account the reality of each sector and the size of the companies”.
The president of the sector, Antoni Torres, assures in statements to the ARA that “the great concern is that a rigid regulation in this aspect could have a negative impact on the viability of SMEs, as well as on their long-term competitiveness and sustainability “. In the words of Torres: “It is necessary to remember that this measure is favoring all those who have a low personnel cost structure – such as large surfaces or businesses that can automate processes – but our streets are supported thanks to the shops little ones, the street ones, who are the ones who take care of the neighborhoods and take care of the people”, he points out. “This ends up leading to a level of inequality, and the winner is the competition from small businesses, the big stores,” he says.
Finding qualified staff, the big challenge
The lack of qualified workers is one of the main concerns of the sector: it is already well known that there are no fishmongers, butchers, florists, carpenters and a long list of trades that are increasingly in short supply. In this sense, the implementation of the reduction in working hours “will accentuate the problem of the difficulty in finding qualified staff”, according to the Pimec survey, which concludes that 62% of respondents affirm that they currently have problems to cover worker vacancies and, of these, 51% indicate that the main reason for this is the working hours. This situation is particularly relevant in the restaurant, hospitality and trade sectors, where the hours can be longer or irregular. “If there are already difficulties in finding staff, any change that increases the need for workers further increases this pressure,” the report says.
Torres considers that reducing the working day is “only a patch”: “The problems in the labor market are, above all, absenteeism and low productivity. This is structural and is what needs to be solved first”, he says. With regard to the 6,000 euro aid offered by the ministry to convince the business community, Torres does not see it clearly: “It’s very good, but it’s a patchwork again. How many times will they give us this money, for how long and to do what? To make indefinite contracts? It’s bread for today and food for tomorrow,” he says. According to the president of Pimec Comerç, what is needed is to “think small”: “You cannot apply the same to SMEs as to a large company, it is a big problem”, he says.
