New labour laws could set finishing time for working day and enable homeworking – Lener

In the next year, businesses should be prepared for the introduction of new employment legislation aimed at enabling employees to work at home one day per week, while also ensuring the working day finishes at 18.00h, says Carmen Galán, partner and head of the labour law department at Lener.

“In the next 12 months, we will probably have to confront new labour regulations that will incentivise the extension of the working life beyond the legal retirement age, adjust to new judgements from the European courts regarding temporary hiring, and achieve more flexible and compact working days”, says Galán.
The effects of the changes could include enabling employees to accumulate reductions in working hours for “legal guardianship during particular times of the year”, Galán explains. They could also involve the implementation of teleworking for at least one day per week and the establishment of a working day that would finish at 18:00h.
“Considering the latest judgments coming from the European courts about the termination of temporary contracts and the obligation to pay identical compensation to that expected for permanent contracts, we may have to either face reforms of the current Spanish labour legislation in this area, or wait for the High Court’s judgements to solve all the unanswered questions,” says Galán.
In addition, new pensions and tax rules might also be implemented to account for the growing number of people working beyond the ordinary retirement age of 65. These likely reforms will come as Spain’s judiciary grapples with the previous labour laws that were introduced back in 2012. The associated delays to Supreme Court judgments have been a particular issue for lawyers and clients alike.