Legislative proposal: Four-day working week for Romanian employees

Recently, a legislative proposal was registered in the Senate, which aims to increase the labor productivity of employees in multinational companies as well as in various public institutions by introducing the four-day working week.

On Thursday, March 3, 2022, the legislative proposal no. B110 / 2022 for the amendment of Law no. 53/2003 – Labor Code. This legislative proposal takes into account an international precedent for increasing the labor productivity of employees in multinational companies as well as in various public institutions, as stated in the explanatory memorandum to the proposal.

“The distribution of working time during the week is usually uniform, 8 hours a day for 5 days, with two days off. This distribution of working time is established by mutual agreement between the employer and the employee, and can be 10 hours a day for four days, with three days off “, according to the proposal.

The project takes over a proposal of a liberal senator that he initiated in the 2012-2016 legislature and which was commented critically but also appreciably by a large part of the Romanian media. The premise of the proposal was a report of a Romanian news television taken over by all the Romanian media, “a study quoted by CNN Money says that more and more American companies offer employees the opportunity to work four days a week, 10, 11 hours each per day. Human resources experts say the solution may increase employee productivity, but it would take a while to adjust to the new schedule, “he said.

For this legislative proposal to enter into force, it needs to be adopted by Parliament and promulgated by the head of state, and then published in the Official Gazette.

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