He emphasized company agreements and collective agreements with different standard working hours. “When it comes to a general four-day week for everyone with reduced working hours, then I’m skeptical.” The topic is best taken care of with the social partners, said Kocher. “That would not work for all industries,” said Kocher when asked on the sidelines of a press conference on Tuesday in Vienna. But there are already areas in which you can consider a four-day week. Much depends on the “how”: “The social partners are the right level to discuss the direction in which working time development should go.” The Minister of Labor warned that a general four-day week would exacerbate labor shortages and negatively affect unit labor cost developments.
“You can’t generally say that working four days is healthier than working five days,” stressed occupational physician Eva Höltl. “But I very much appreciate the fact that more flexibility is finding its way into the organization of working hours for many jobs – this affects many who have compatibility issues or commute.”
The SPÖ wants to discuss the subject of the four-day week with the relevant stakeholders over the summer and continue in parliament in the autumn. Your voluntary model includes public funding. Working hours should be reduced by 20 percent, i.e. to 32 hours a week, and thus one more day off should be created. Half of the remaining 20 percent should be paid by the AMS and 25 percent each by the employer and the employee. A four-day week would leave a gross wage of 95 percent, party leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner calculated last Friday. For every four employees in the four-day-week model, one additional worker should be employed “in order to achieve an employment effect”.
