The costs of a possible reduction in working hours to 40 hours per week would be similar to the impacts observed in historical readjustments of the minimum wage in Brazil, which indicates the labor market’s ability to absorb the measure. 
The conclusion is from a study published this Tuesday (10) by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), which analyzes the economic effects of a possible reduction in the currently predominant 44-hour working week, associated with the 6×1 scale, which establishes one day of rest for every six worked.
Reducing working hours would have a cost of less than 1% in large sectors, such as industry and commerce, but some service sectors that depend on more labor may need public policies, assesses Ipea.
The researchers cite, for example, historical minimum wage adjustments, such as 12% in 2001 and 7.6% in 2012, which did not reduce the level of employment.
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A general working day of 40 hours a week would increase the cost of CLT workers by 7.84%, but, within the total cost of the operation, the effect is smaller, says researcher Felipe Pateo.
“When we look at the operation of large companies in the area of commerce, industry, we see that the cost of workers sometimes represents less than 10% of the company’s operating cost. It has a large cost of building stocks, investment costs in machinery”, he explains.
Building service companies, such as surveillance and cleaning, can have a greater impact of 6.5% on the cost of operation. In these cases, a gradual transition to the new journey would be necessary. The same would apply to small companies, which may have even more difficulty adapting work schedules, according to Pateo.
“We see that this transition time is also very important for smaller companies. And you need to open up possibilities for hiring part-time workers, for example, who can possibly cover working time on a weekend, if the reduction in working hours could make this process difficult”, he observes.
Fighting inequalities
The study also points out that 44-hour working hours concentrate workers with lower income and education. For the researcher, reducing working hours can reduce inequalities.
“When we reduce the maximum working day to 40 hours, we put these workers who are in jobs with lower salaries, with shorter duration of employment, on an equal footing, at least in terms of the number of hours worked. And we end up increasing the value of these workers’ hourly work. So this brings them closer to the conditions of workers in the best employment situations”, he argues.
According to the survey, the average salary for those who work up to 40 hours a week is R$6,200. 44-hour workers receive, on average, less than half. These workers with longer hours also have less education.
According to the Ipea study, more than 83% of people with up to high school education are in this condition, a proportion that drops to 53% among those with completed higher education. Unlike other sociodemographic characteristics, the incidence of extended working hours shows a strong association with the level of education.
The vast majority of the 44 million CLT workers registered in the Annual Social Information List (Rais) in 2023 worked 44 hours a week. In total, they total 31,779,457, which is equivalent to 74% of those who had a reported journey. In 31 of the 87 economic sectors analyzed, more than 90% of workers work hours above 40 hours per week.
Rais is a mandatory declaration in which Brazilian companies inform the Ministry of Labor of data about their employees, employment relationships and salaries.
Smaller companies
A challenge highlighted in the Ipea study is for smaller companies, as they have, proportionally, more workers with working hours longer than 40 hours. While the national average indicates that 79.7% of workers work more than 40 hours a week, this percentage rises to 87.7% in companies with up to four employees and 88.6% in those that employ between five and nine workers.
Workers currently working more than 40 hours total 3.39 million in companies with up to four employees and 6.64 million when considering those with up to nine workers.
These sectors include, for example, segments in the education area, activities of associative organizations and other personal services, such as laundries and hairdressers, in which extended working hours predominate between companies with up to four workers.
Debate
The reduction of the working day from 44 hours to 40 hours and the end of the 6×1 scale entered the country’s political radar at the beginning of the year.
This Tuesday, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), said that one of the The House’s priorities this year are precisely to vote on these labor rights. On his social networks, Motta wrote that the analysis by deputies could take place in May.
Currently, two proposals are being discussed in the House on the subject: one from congresswoman Erika Hilton, the PEC 8/25and another by deputy Reginaldo Lopes, the PEC 221/19.
In the message sent to the National Congress last week, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also placed the issue among the government’s priorities for the semester. .
