MADRID (AP) — Experimenting with cutting back one workday per week is about to go nationwide in Spain. A three-year pilot project will be using 50 million euros ($59 million) from the European Union’s massive coronavirus recovery fund to compensate companies as they resize their workforce or reorganize production workflows to adapt to a 32-hour working week. While several companies have already embraced the trend, the pandemic has accelerated it. Supporters say that shorter schedules could benefit work-life balance and three-day weekends could boost consumption. But critics argue that a pandemic-shaken economy is no ground for experiments.
