Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced on Tuesday a labor market reform project offering more flexibility and in particular the possibility of working four days instead of five.
This set of measures, which must still be submitted to the social partners and then adopted by Parliament, should help Belgium to achieve “an employment rate of 80% by 2030”, compared to approximately 71% currently.
“The package contains measures that give employees more freedom and flexibility to better reconcile private and professional life,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister.
A lesson learned from Covid-19
“People who wish will be able to work more hours per day in exchange for an extra day off during the week. Thus, they will be able to do a full-time job in four days,” he adds. This will require the agreement of the employer, but a refusal on his part must be motivated.
In addition, employees will be able to work “a little more one week and a little less the next, which offers some flexibility to people in a co-parenting situation”, underlines the project.
Alexander De Croo explained that the labor market had to adapt to the lessons of the pandemic. “The Covid period has forced us to work more flexibly,” he said at a press conference.
Iceland and Japan have tested the measure
According to the OECD, the average working week in Belgium is 35.5 hours, compared to 36.5 hours per week in France, 38.7 in the United States and 36.3 in Great Britain.
EU member Belgium is following in the footsteps of countries like Iceland and Japan, which piloted the four-day working week last year.
Among the other measures on which the seven parties of the ruling coalition have agreed are the extension of the “right to disconnect”, “better protection” of platform deliverers and “facilitation” of night work for employees of the ecommerce.
