The Spanish people live better than the ones who lived there in the first half of the 20th century, but they are still far from the levels reached by the great majority of the industrialized countries. On one hand, Spain is considered to be at the forefront of working hours a year in Europe. On the other hand, in terms of working days only a 13 % has been reduced in the last 60 years, when the average of the industrialized countries reaches a 25 %.

In the last sixty years, the hours worked by each employee have been reduced in all the industrialized countries. The Institut National de la Stastistique et des études économiques (INSEE) has came to this conclusion. Between 1950 and 2007, the duration of the annual working day of those ten countries with greater GDP per capita (see the graph) has decreased its average 25 %. Of course, they have not reached it at the same time.

Spain is the slowest country not only in Europe but also in the set of the previously discussed countries. Here, in 2007, on the verge of the crisis, one was still working only a 13 % less than in the equator of the 20th century. With the naked eye, this descent can seem substantial, but it loses a five-year period on having compared it with the dynamics led by the rest of the industrialized economies. In the same period, a cutback in the working day in Netherlands and Germany bordered on a 40 %, in France it was detected over a 30 % and just a 20 % in Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom. Only Japan and the United States were placing themselves in the Spanish threshold with reductions at 14, 2 % and 11, 2 % respectively.

But that is not all. Spain also leads another ranking: it is the European state where people work the most. Every professional was used for a 1.775-hour average in this period. This is a figure that contrasts with those1.413 hours of the Netherlands (-25, 6 %), a 1.432 of Germany (-23, 9 %), a 1.559 of France (-13, 8 %) or a 1.607 in the United Kingdom (-10, 4 %), among others.
Outside the European borders, this fact changes a little bit. In Japan every worker withstood 1.784 hours (only a 0, 5 % more than in Spain, in spite of the reputation of the average Japanese worker), 1.785 (0,5 %) in the USA and 2.165 in Korea (over a 18 %).

According to Angel Laborda, the director of the Foundation of Savings banks (Funcas), in our country the part-time working day has not triumphed for several reasons. In one aspect, “the woman has joined to the great labor market later than in any other country of our environment”. On the other hand, “the legislation has not resulted to be comfortable neither for the companies nor for the workers and this kind of culture has spread”, as Laborda states.

Also, to support an obsolete productive model constitutes the handicap of Spain. In the last part of the studied period the construction kept on having an enormous burden in the economy (in 2007, it represented a 12, 2 % of the GDP, when experts estimate that it should have been around 7 %).