Proposal on four-day workweek up to management, DOLE says
MANILA, Philippines — Adopting a four-day workweek will be the prerogative of management of establishments amid the proposal from the national government's socioeconomic planning body, the Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.
To recall, National Economic Development Authority chief Karl Chua made the recommendation at President Rodrigo Duterte's public address late Wednesday night.
"We should try conserving our energy and one example is to have a four-day workweek. They can also save up because they won't have to commute every day, and this will help us manage the economy," he said then.
“Each Filipino will still work 40 hours per week. But instead of five days, it will be four; instead of eight hours a day, it will be 10 hours a day," he also said.
Speaking in an interview aired over ANC's Headstart, Labor Undersecretary Benjo Benavidez said that the government would not be imposing it as a requirement, while it was also mulling a wage subsidy to offset the impact of the oil crisis caused by the Russia-Ukraine war on poor families.
"We can appeal to the private sector to implement [it] because again, it's management prerogative, they have to decide on this and it's within their sole jurisdiction...but we can only encourage, not obligate the private sector to adopt four-day workweeks," he said. "The Labor Code of the Philippines does not provide the minimum number of working days in a week."
What would a four-day workweek look like? "At present, reporting in government is usually from Monday to Friday...so it has to be either on Monday until Thursday, or to start the workweek from Tuesday to Friday."
"If this is meant to save costs, then I think the Civil Service [Commission] will want to issue guidelines on this," Benavidez also said, referring to four-day workweeks in government.
Pressed for comment on the return to office order for the IT-BPO industry, Benavidez said that the singular act of refusing to come in "cannot be grounds for termination in the short term, but in the long term it might," because it could be considered insubordination.
He added that in the DOLE, all government workers are required to come in for on-site work.
Asked about the proposed wage subsidy, Benavidez said the package would consist of "more or less P500 for a period of three months" per worker.
"Initially we are targetting one million minimum wage earners. By the way we have about 3.6 (million) minimum wage earners in the Philippines...we intend to implement this, if approved, starting April to June of this year," he said.
Why target just one million? "Given the limitation of the funding, we deem it proper to prioritize the first one million of the micro-enterprises...they are the most affected."
Instead of rolling out ayuda, would it be faster to just not collect excise tax? "We will leave that to the economic managers, I think they are in the best position to assess the proposal," Benavidez said.
In response to the proposal, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas announced Thursday morning that his city government would adopt the four-day workweek starting the last week of March.
He said this was "in order to help our employees cope with the present increases of fuel," adding that "we are also going to make use of our modern jeeps to ferry our employees from the district plazas to the City Hall and back every day."
"Other measures recommended for energy conservation will be seriously studied," he said. — Franco Luna
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