Spain to launch modest trial of four-day working week

The problem here is the effect on productivity. While there are some jobs where decreasing 20% of working hours while keeping productivity constant may be perfectly feasible, there are lots of jobs in Spain's precarious service-oriented economy where this is not possible.

For example, take all jobs depending on tourism: how is a waiter going to produce the same in four days of work than in five?

The same applies for Spain's public sector. Many public workers already have very good working conditions, but more importantly, the same effect described above also applies to them: it is not clear whether their working hours can be compressed without a significant loss of productivity.

To be clear I'm not against the idea, as there may be some merit to it if applied reasonably and on a tactical level, as part of much greater economic reforms. But I fear this is not what will happen; rather, populist politicians will take it and run with it because it sounds good, without any regards for its real implications, and without addressing the much harder and endemic problems of the Spanish economy such as the eye-watering unemployment levels and the lack of opportunities for our youth.

We are always swamped in huge piles of bureaucracy, it's difficult not to be caught in some evaluation or other that requires you to spend months devoting countless hours to mindless paperwork (for the last one, I literally submitted a more than 1800-page PDF. I'm not exaggerating, I just checked). There are so many evaluations (6-year research evaluations from the Spanish government, research complement evaluations from the regional government, evaluations of research centers, evaluations of the PhD program, 5-year Docentia teaching evaluations, accreditations for the countless positions in the scale, with the subsequent evaluation for the position itself...) that we are subject to several a year, each with their own CV format and their own forms incompatible with the rest and asking for different things. And then there is the day-to-day bureaucracy where buying a computer can mean filling 10-15 different forms.

Paperwork takes most of our time and being able to do some "real work" feels like a reward that one has to earn. Still the real work is rewarding, but I wish it were like in other countries (say northern Europe, the US...) where real work can be most of the time. (And why didn't I migrate? Because of attachment to my place and my loved ones, like many people here. If work were my main driver in life I'd have been out of here long ago).

As for the experiment, I hope it achieves success but I wouldn't hold my breath. Under the current political climate, I'm afraid even if it's an undisputable success, the moment a right-wing government is voted to office they will tear it down because it's "communism", "handouts", "will turn us into Venezuela" or something like that. It's difficult to achieve anything with the current political polarization (and the main party that was between both blocs, currently in danger of extinction).

But yes, I whole-heartedly believe that people should derive some meaning out of work, as they devote ~40 of their waking hours to that activity, and it can be a cornerstone of a person's identity. And meaning can take many forms: that you're doing something for yourself, for your family, for your community or your nation, that you intrinsically enjoy the task at hand, or a combination thereof.

This is a common characteristic of thriving nations I've observed in my travels and readings, and conversely, I think that nations that do not have this trait are bound to decline or even crash.

Note how I also do not entirely blame Spaniards for a problem that is clearly systemic; on the other hand, I do believe that we as individual citizens should remain strong in the face of adversity, and not succumb to providential fatalism, as this will also inevitably lead to national misery.

By not being tired on the fifth, not taking wrong orders and not dropping glasses. Same as a software engineer would.

I see your point tho, and it is very valid. I am just playing angels advocate here.

But, iirc, earliest research on the topic was conducted in a hospital, which is a services business, same as a restaurant. Increases in production (I said production and not productivity) were found. Research is not solid.

If you pay people more, then you can. Basic Henry Ford.