MADRID, 13 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Official State Gazette (BOE) has published this Thursday the call for the granting of aid aimed at SMEs that want to implement pilot projects to reduce working hours, which will have one month to submit their applications and obtain up to a maximum of 200,000 euro.
This project is aimed at companies that are considered small and medium-sized companies, with their own legal personality, legally constituted in Spain and duly registered in the corresponding registry, that are not part of the public sector and that carry out an industrial activity, as stated in the BOE.
The budget allocated to this call is 9.650 million euros, and the expense will be charged to the budget of the Fundación Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI Foundation).
The total financing that will be granted in the form of a subsidy will be a maximum of 90% of the eligible budget, depending on the number of workers.
Companies with up to 10 employees will be able to get 90% of the personnel cost supported by the company as a result of the reduction in working hours during the first year.
Those with between 11 and 52 people will be able to access an assigned subsidy of 80% of the personnel cost supported by the company as a result of the reduction in working hours during the first year. For those with more than 53 workers and less than 249, the subsidy assigned will be 75%.
The budget for the pilot project is based on an agreement reached in 2021 between the Government and Más País, when those of Íñigo Errejón gave their support to the General State Budget (PGE) for 2022 in exchange for including an item to study the 32 hour work day.
Mas País estimated at the time that some 160 companies could join the project, with a benefit of more than 3,000 employees in the first edition of the program.
The pilot projects must reflect a minimum working day reduction of 10% for a number of workers determined according to the size of the company, and with a minimum duration of 24 months from the date of the concession resolution.
Once the companies promote these pilot projects, temporary direct aid is foreseen for the costs assumed by the company as a result of the reduction in working hours, as well as for the costs of implementing new organizational formulas and training that, medium term, generate an increase in productivity.
According to the Government Order, published last December, the number of workers participating in the pilot project must affect at least 30% of the workforce in companies with up to 20 workers and at least 25% in SMEs with between 21 and 249 workers.
To calculate the number of workers in a company or work center, the total staff of the same will be taken into account. For these purposes, all the workers of the company will be counted, regardless of their type of contract, including people with fixed-discontinuous contracts and with fixed-term contracts.
Each worker with a part-time contract will be counted, regardless of the number of working hours, as one more person. Fixed-term contracts must be added to this number of people, whatever their modality.
In addition, SMEs must guarantee that the number of women participating in the project responds to the percentage of gender distribution existing in the entire workforce with a full-time permanent contract, allowing a deviation of 10%. However, the Order specifies that this percentage of participating women may be higher, but not lower.
