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Colombia: A new Law that reduces the weekly working hours from 48 to 42

  • On 15 July 2021, Law 2101 of 2021 came into force reducing the working week from 48 to 42 hours
  • This reduction will take effect gradually between 2023 and 2026.  
  • Salaries and social benefits will not be affected or reduced under this new law.

 

The Colombian Government recently enacted a law that amended Article 161 of the Substantive Labour code. The maximum legal ordinary working week for employed persons over the age of 17 will now be 42 hours a week, which can be distributed over 5 or 6 days a week, based on the agreement between employers and employees.

With its statutory 48 hours, Colombia has the longest working hours among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

The measure will bring the country closer to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Reduction of Hours of Work Recommendation (1962) No. 116, which indicates in the Preamble the standard of the forty-hour week as a social standard to be reached by stages if necessary.

Paragraphs 4 and 6 of the ILO Recommendation No. 116 state that “[n]ormal hours of work should be progressively reduced, when appropriate, with a view to attaining the social standard indicated in the Preamble of this Recommendation without any reduction in the wages of the workers as at the time hours of work are reduced”, and “Where normal weekly hours of work are either forty-eight or less, measures for the progressive reduction of hours of work in accordance with Paragraph 4 should be worked out and implemented in a manner suited to the particular national circumstances and the conditions in each sector of economic activity”.

The Law establishes a gradual implementation of the reduction of the weekly working hours, as follows: 

Date

Maximum weekly work

2023 (July 15)

47 hours

2024 (July 15)

46 hours

2025 (July 15)

44 hours

2026 (July 15)

42 hours

The new limit on weekly working hours will have the following exceptions:

(a) In work which is particularly unhealthy or dangerous, the Government may order a reduction of the working day in accordance with the relevant provisions.

(b) The maximum duration of the working day of adolescents authorised to work shall be subject to the following rules:

1. Adolescents over the age of 15 and under the age of 17 may only work a maximum of six hours a day and thirty hours a week and until 6:00 p.m.

2. Adolescents over seventeen (17) years of age may only work a maximum of eight hours a day and 40 hours a week and until 8:00 p.m.

c) The employer and the worker may agree, temporarily or indefinitely, to organise successive work shifts that allow the company or sections thereof to operate without interruption on all days of the week, provided that the respective shift does not exceed six hours a day and thirty-six hours a week.

In this case, there shall be no night surcharge or the surcharge for Sunday or public holiday work, but the worker shall earn the salary corresponding to the ordinary working day, always respecting the legal or conventional minimum, and shall have the right to a paid rest day.

d) The employer and the worker may agree that the 42-hour working week shall be carried out by means of flexible daily working hours, distributed over a maximum of six days a week with a compulsory rest day, which may coincide with Sunday.

Thus, the number of daily working hours may be distributed in a variable manner during the respective week, with a minimum of four continuous hours and a maximum of nine hours per day without any surcharge for additional work, when the number of working hours does not exceed the average of 42 hours per week within the ordinary workday.

The law specifies that the reduction in working hours will not entail a reduction in salaries, social benefits, the value of the working hour, or the employer’s other obligations. 

It also provides that the new maximum working week will prevail over all existing articles that refer to the 48-hour working week. 

Consequently, the daily working hours limit for flexible working hours will change from 10 hours to now only 9 hours per day.  to as 9 hours

These changes will have important repercussions on companies, especially in those sectors operating on work shifts, which will require companies to adjust schedules and working plans, according to their specific operational needs. Financial consequences are also to be taken into account.

For these reasons and for the consequences on companies’ competitiveness advantage, Colombian employers’ organizations have firmly opposed the reform and have pointed out the possible costs of this reform, as well as the possible increase of unemployment and informal work.

The President of the IOE’s member ANDI (National Association of Entrepreneurs of Colombia - Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia), Bruce Mac Master commented that “[i]t is very likely that this project ends, generating great unemployment. The figure we have estimated is that 500 thousand jobs will be lost”. According to ANDI estimates, before 2026 or 2027 the country will not reach the level of economic growth that it had in 2019, prior to the pandemic. This labour reform makes it difficult for informal workers to obtain formal employment, as it widens by at least 20% the wage gap between the informal and the formal sector. This distortion makes it difficult to reduce informality. On the contrary it is foreseeable that it will increase, at least in the short term.

Jaime Alberto Caballe, President of the National Federation of Merchants (Federación Nacional de Comerciantes, FENALCO), said that the labour cost will increase by 20% and that changing ordinary working hours without taking action on social security contributions proportional to the hours worked implies excessive costs for businesses, unless overtime costs are also taken into account. He also pointed out that it is essential to bear in mind that trade, tourism and services are sectors that work intensively at weekends, resulting in significant overtime, Sunday and holiday costs.

Rosmery Quintero, President of the Colombian Association of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (Asociacion Asociación Colombiana de Medianas y Pequeñas Empresas - ACOPI), insisted on the difficulties related to the new law for businesses that are gradually recovering from the pandemic.

In this context, ANDI has asked the Congress to take into consideration not only the prevailing economic crisis in Colombia as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also that the majority of the productive sector in Colombia is composed of micro-enterprises, that have specially being impacted by the crisis.

Considering that the changes will not be implemented until 2023, employers should begin to prepare for the gradual reduction in work week hours and start to plan for how it may affect their current business practices.