More than a century has passed since the adoption of International Labour Convention No. 1 (1919) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), which sought to establish, at a global level, a maximum limit of eight working hours per day and a weekly limit of forty-eight hours in the industrial sector.
The Constitution of the ILO states that adopting the eight-hour workday or the forty-eight-hour workweek as a standard—where it had not yet been implemented—was a matter of “particular and urgent importance.”
The aim was not only to ensure better physical and mental conditions for workers, but also to standardize key aspects of the production process in order to prevent unfair competition between companies and countries.
Prior to 1919, only four countries had incorporated the eight-hour workday into their legislation: Cuba in 1909, Panama in 1914, Uruguay in 1915, and Ecuador in 1916.
By 1922—three years after Convention No. 1 was adopted—the forty-eight-hour workweek had become common throughout Europe, particularly in the industrial sector, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and several Latin American countries.
Yet by 2026, only 46 of the 187 member states of the ILO have ratified this convention.
Today, the daily and weekly limits on working hours remain a contested issue, with initiatives moving in opposite directions: some seeking to reduce working time and others attempting to extend it.
Since most countries already have legal provisions regulating working hours, much of the political and social debate takes place in the legislative arena. As is often the case, however, these debates are preceded by strong campaigns aimed at legitimizing the regulatory changes being promoted.
Although there are variations, it can generally be observed that in many high-income countries the standard workweek revolves around forty hours. In Latin America, by contrast, weekly schedules closer to forty-eight hours still predominate.
Furthermore, the issue takes on different significance in societies with high levels of precarious or informal employment. In practice, workers in these sectors are often not covered by labor regulations, much less by daily or weekly limits on working time.
Conversely, in societies where collective bargaining remains significant, statutory limits are frequently reduced through sectoral or enterprise agreements. As a result, the actual working conditions experienced by workers cannot be fully understood simply by examining national legislation.
It is also important to clarify that when we refer to “working hours,” we mean the time during which workers are at the disposal of the employer, as established in Article 2 of ILO Convention No. 30:
“For the purpose of the present Convention, the term ‘hours of work’ means the time during which the personnel is at the disposal of the employer; rest periods during which the personnel is not at the disposal of the employer shall be excluded.”
Initiatives to Reduce Working Time
At the international level, the ILO itself has promoted additional standards aimed at reducing maximum working hours.
In 1930, International Labour Convention No. 30 was adopted, establishing limits in the commercial sector and for administrative personnel within the industrial sector.
In 1935, Convention No. 47 advocated a forty-hour workweek. Later, Recommendation No. 116 (1962) on the reduction of working time considered the forty-hour week a “social standard to be achieved progressively.”
However, these standards were met with limited uptake. In Latin America, for example, no country has ratified Convention No. 47, and only a small number have ratified Conventions No. 1 and No. 30 (14 and 10 countries respectively).
According to an ILO technical report, most high-income European countries currently set legal limits of forty hours per week, typically structured as five working days of eight hours each.
In 2009, Australia reduced the standard workweek from forty to thirty-eight hours. Spain is currently promoting a further reduction to thirty-seven and a half hours.
Japan introduced the “Work Style Reform” in 2018, establishing a maximum of forty-five weekly overtime hours, while South Korea reduced the maximum permitted weekly working hours from sixty-eight to fifty-two in 2021.
In recent years, countries including Germany, Iceland, Japan, Ireland, the United States, and New Zealand have considered or implemented initiatives aimed at reducing working time.
The United Arab Emirates became the first country to establish a four-and-a-half-day workweek across all government institutions and its central bank.
Support for reducing working hours has also emerged from certain business sectors. Some organizations have created the 4 Day Week Foundation, which—drawing on data and pilot programs in New Zealand and elsewhere—argues that shorter workweeks not only improve workers’ quality of life and help address gender inequality, but also enhance productivity.
At the beginning of 2023, results were published from the largest four-day workweek experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, involving more than sixty companies and approximately three thousand workers.
At the conclusion of the trial, participants worked one fewer day without any reduction in salary. Workers reported greater satisfaction, productivity targets were met, and companies maintained or even increased their revenues while reducing costs and retaining talent.
Norway is currently experimenting with the four-day workweek model. The 4 Day Week Norway movement promotes a framework based on the 100–80–100 principle: 100 percent of salary, 80 percent of working time, and 100 percent productivity. The idea is to free up Fridays while intensifying work during the remaining four days.
Mexico
On March 6, 2026, Mexico enacted a constitutional reform modifying Sections IV and XI of Article 123(A) of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, addressing the reduction of working hours.
The revised Section IV states: “The working day shall be forty hours per week under the terms established by law. For every six days of work, workers shall enjoy at least one day of rest with full pay.”
Mexico thus joins other Latin American countries—such as Ecuador, Chile, and more recently Colombia—that have adopted legislation significantly reducing weekly working hours.
The reform establishes a gradual transition from January 1, 2026, to 2030:
| Year | Weekly Working Hours |
| 2026 | 48 |
| 2027 | 46 |
| 2028 | 44 |
| 2029 | 42 |
| 2030 | 40 |
To eliminate any ambiguity, the fourth transitional provision explicitly states that the reduction in working hours shall not entail any reduction in wages, salaries, or benefits.
Nevertheless, one of the most criticized aspects of the reform is that the revised Section XI permits up to twelve hours of overtime per week, with a maximum of four per day.
Hours exceeding this limit are not prohibited; instead, employers must pay double the ordinary hourly wage.
According to several estimates, the reform will reduce working hours for approximately thirty million Mexican workers.
This change is particularly significant given that Mexico currently has one of the longest average annual working times in the world—about 2,124 hours per year, compared to an average of 1,687 hours in OECD countries (approximately 23 percent above the OECD average).
Argentina
In stark contrast to Mexico, on the same day—March 6, 2026—the Argentine executive branch enacted Labor Modernization Law No. 27,802.
This legislation allows companies to impose twelve-hour workdays, eliminate overtime payments, pay wages partially in kind, reduce severance compensation, and restrict union activity.
The law raises the daily working limit from eight to twelve hours and introduces a “time bank” system intended to compensate overtime with rest periods, effectively eliminating the obligation to pay overtime wages.
Critics argue that the legislation assumes a voluntary agreement between employer and worker while ignoring the clear imbalance of power that characterizes most employment relationships.
The reforms were adopted despite strong opposition from trade unions but with the enthusiastic support of sectors closely aligned with the country’s economic and political power structures.
Multiple legal challenges have already been announced against various provisions of the law, and its future validity may ultimately be determined by the courts.
Impacts
According to the aforementioned ILO technical report, reducing working hours is associated with at least five key dimensions of decent work:
- occupational health and safety
- increased productivity and business sustainability
- work–life balance
- the promotion of gender equality
- greater worker autonomy in choosing working hours and balancing personal needs with business requirements
Shorter working hours are also often viewed as a potential tool for reducing unemployment.
Evidence from countries such as Sweden, France, and Japan indicates significant benefits in terms of health, family life, job satisfaction, and leisure time.
However, macroeconomic outcomes—such as reductions in unemployment or productivity gains—depend heavily on economic conditions, cultural factors, and other contextual variables.
Most of the available evidence has been generated in high-income countries, making it difficult to extrapolate directly to regions such as Latin America, where informal and precarious employment remains widespread.
Low wage levels also diminish the practical impact of shorter working hours when workers must rely on multiple jobs or supplementary income to meet basic needs.
In addition, contemporary technological conditions complicate genuine disconnection from work, meaning that reductions in formal working hours may not always translate into a real reduction in work time.
Nevertheless, despite the difficulty of precisely measuring their effects, there is little evidence suggesting negative outcomes from policies aimed at reducing daily or weekly working hours.
Concluding Reflections
On March 9, 2026, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, delivered a speech that provoked significant criticism in the context of escalating geopolitical tensions.
She stated that: “Europe cannot rely on the rules-based system as the only way to defend its interests.”
She further suggested that Europe must reconsider whether institutions and doctrines conceived in the post-war period remain adequate in the face of contemporary global transformations.
Such statements reveal a broader shift that extends beyond geopolitics and international security to the legal and institutional frameworks that govern social life—including labor relations.
From a long-term perspective, dismantling both individual and collective labor protections becomes a central component of efforts to reshape the world of work—bringing it closer to the conditions of the nineteenth century than those of the twenty-first.
It is therefore not surprising that Argentina’s current administration, while repeatedly expressing admiration for U.S. political leadership and its policies, has promoted the so-called “labor modernization” law—an expression that obscures a reform which, far from modernizing labor relations, effectively reintroduces working conditions once believed to have been overcome.
Nor is it coincidental that Spain—while one of the few European countries to voice opposition to certain military actions—has simultaneously pursued concrete measures to reduce working time and regulate migration in ways that have benefited hundreds of thousands of people.
Ultimately, the question remains: what kind of society do we envision if we encourage twelve-hour workdays?
If we assume that workers spend approximately one hour commuting and require at least eight hours of rest, only three hours remain for family life, social interaction, personal development, and leisure—leaving little room even to imagine study or self-improvement.
A model of this kind can only be justified by assuming that the sole function of human beings is to work—and only to work.
How far we have moved from the principle that, more than a century ago, inspired the ILO and many national legislations to adopt the eight-hour workday: eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for personal, family, and social life.