\ The Government will initially provide 400,000 euros for the years 2023 and 2024, which may be extended depending on the demand from interested companies.

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Companies to set up four-day working days in the Balearic Islands have been launched.

\ The call for subsidies will be 5,000 euros per worker, with a maximum aid of 200,000 euros for each company.

The Consell de Govern has been informed of the status of the processing, by the Conselleria de Modelo Económico, Turismo y Trabajo, of a call for public aid to establish incentives to reduce the working day to four days or 32 hours a week in companies in the Balearic Islands, without this entailing a reduction in wages. To this end, the initial amount foreseen will be 400,000 euros for the 2023 and 2024 financial years, which can be extended according to demand.

This initiative is in addition to the pilot project recently promoted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, and follows a similar line to the call for subsidies promoted by the Generalitat Valenciana, with the same objective of reducing the working week to 32 working hours.

The call is currently in the final stage of processing at the Autonomous Community’s General Comptroller’s Office for prior auditing; once this process has been passed, it will be published in the BOIB (Official Gazette of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands).

The aim of this call for applications is to set up a system of public incentives for the voluntary reduction of the working day to 4 days a week or 32 hours a week, without loss of wages, in order to promote an improvement in productivity at work that favours the generation of added value and the retention of talent in companies. It is also intended that this measure will contribute to increasing the possibilities of reconciling family, personal and work life, as well as reducing carbon emissions linked to labour mobility and intensive energy use.

In this way, the aim is to promote work-life balance in companies, as employers who provide their staff with a series of measures aimed at making the workplace compatible with the time they need to carry out other activities.

Structure of the call for applications

The reduction of the ordinary working day will have to affect a different number of workers depending on the size of each workforce:

• In companies with less than 10 workers: 30% of the workers must be affected. In any case, the minimum number of workers affected by the reduction in working hours in the company or work centre must be at least two workers.

• In companies with between 10 and 49 workers: 30% of the workers must be employed. In any case, the minimum number of workers affected by the reduction in working hours in the company or work centre must be at least three workers.
• In companies with 50 or more workers: 20% of the workers must be employed. In any case, the minimum number of workers affected by the reduction of working hours in the company or workplace must be at least five workers.

The proposal for the number of workers participating in the plan must have a similar participation of men and women in relation to the pre-existing gender distribution in the workforce as a whole of workers with full-time employment contracts. In this respect, a maximum deviation of 10% will be allowed.

5,000 euros per employee

By 2023, interested companies will have to submit a working time reduction plan, to be submitted by 16 October of this year, indicating the organisational or training measures to be implemented in order to optimise working time.

In 2024, the first full year of implementation of the project, the costs of reduced working hours will be subsidised up to €5,000 for each worker who has reduced working hours.

The maximum amount that can be received by a single company is set at €200,000.