Spain slashes civil-service week to 35 hours, unlocking 250,000 jobs

Madrid just tore up the rulebook: every employee of Spain’s central administration will clock out after 35 hours starting mid-April, ending a stalemate that had frozen working conditions since the Rajoy era.

A quarter-million payrolls pivot overnight

The decision, sealed at 2 a.m. Tuesday between cabinet negotiators and the CSIF-CCOO-UGT triumvirate, reaches 250.000 public servants—from prison guards to tax inspectors—and instantly becomes the largest labour overhaul in the Spanish public sector since the 2011 spending cuts.

Unlike previous attempts, the text contains zero carve-outs: even summer-intensive schedules and penitentiary 24-hour shifts must be prorated. Ministries have 15 days to publish the implementing resolution; after that, each department has until 15 April to translate the mandate into concrete rosters.

The hidden lever: mass retirement meets flex time

Behind the headline lies a demographic shock. One in five civil servants will hit retirement age within the next five years, forcing the state into a hiring spree it can barely finance. By compressing the workweek, the government gains a budget-neutral sweetener to attract Gen-Z applicants who treat 35 hours as a red line, not a perk.

CSIF president Miguel Borra calls the deal “historic” and claims it will spawn thousands of new positions through shift-splitting. Critics counter that productivity, not headcount, will decide whether the measure becomes a template for regional governments and state-owned companies now watching from the sidelines.

The first stress test arrives in July, when vacation-staffed offices must still deliver passports and pensions with 12.5% fewer man-hours on the books. If queues lengthen, the opposition PP already has its slogan: “Less work, same chaos.”

For now, the photocopiers inside the Complejo de la Moncloa will switch off at 4 p.m. sharp. Spain’s private sector—still stuck at 40 hours—has been warned.