Greece has controversially launched a six-day working week for some companies in a bid to spice up productiveness and employment within the southern European nation.

The regulation, which got here into power on July 1, bucks a world pattern of firms exploring a shorter working week.

Beneath the brand new laws, which was handed as a part of a broader set of labor legal guidelines final 12 months, staff of personal companies that present round the clock providers will reportedly have the choice of working a further two hours per day or an additional eight-hour shift.

The change means a conventional 40-hour workweek might be prolonged to 48 hours per week for some companies. Meals service and tourism employees aren’t included within the six-day working week initiative.

The professional-business authorities of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has mentioned the measure is each “worker-friendly” and “deeply growth-orientated.” It’s designed to assist staff not being sufficiently compensated for time beyond regulation work and to assist crack down on the issue of undeclared labor.

Labor unions and political observers have sharply criticized the transfer.

A spokesperson for Greece’s embassy in London was not instantly accessible to remark when contacted by CNBC.

Giorgos Katsambekis, a lecturer in European and worldwide politics on the U.Okay.’s Loughborough College, described the Greek authorities’s introduction of the labor regulation as “a significant step again” for a workforce that’s already working the longest hours within the European Union.

Staff in Greece work greater than these within the U.S., Japan and others within the 27-member EU, in keeping with knowledge from the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement.

Greek staff had been discovered to have labored a median of 1,886 hours in 2022, greater than the U.S. common of 1,811 and the EU common of 1,571.

“Greek folks already work the longest hours per week in Europe. Now they might be compelled to work a sixth day, after this Greek [government] choice,” John O’Brennan, professor of EU Legislation from Maynooth College, Eire, mentioned through social media platform X on Monday.

“It’s ridiculous, set in opposition to the transfer to 4 day weeks in most civilised nations,” he added.

A report printed by suppose tank Autonomy earlier this 12 months discovered that almost all firms concerned on the planet’s largest trial of a four-day working week had made the coverage everlasting.

All of the consulted challenge managers and CEOs of the businesses concerned within the trial mentioned a four-day working week had a optimistic influence on their group, with greater than half describing the influence as “very optimistic.”

The report discovered, nevertheless, that employees — in companies the place the extra break day was solely weakly assured, or supplied on the situation of assembly sure targets — had some issues.