Greece Becomes First EU Country To Introduce Six-Day Working Week

Greece has become the first EU country to introduce a six-day working week.

The new six-day work schedule comes under an employment law titled Law 5053/2023. The law is voluntary for companies to adopt, with hopes it will help kick-start the economy in the country who still haven’t emerged from Europe’s worst financial crisis in decades.

If employers compel employees to work a sixth day, they have to be remunerated with an additional 40 percent of their daily wage added to their regular daily wage on the extra working day.

For now it only applies to businesses which operate on a 24-hour basis.

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the “nucleus of this legislation is worker-friendly, it is deeply growth-oriented. And it brings Greece in line with the rest of Europe,” the Guardian first reported.

“It is important to note that this measure does not affect in any way the established five-day working week mandated by law. Instead, it serves to address urgent operational demands that cannot be met through the available supply of specialised workers,” a spokesperson for Greece’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security told the BBC.

Greece’s extension of the work week would buck the trend sweeping the rest of Europe, with more nations moving towards adopting a shorter 4-day work week.