The House of Representatives has approved on 3rd and final reading a bill that would allow companies to designate for employees a 4-day work week.
House Bill 6152 will amend the Labor Code to allow companies to increase the workday from 8 hours to 10 or 12 hours. It will then allow companies to shorten the work week to 4 days.
The current Labor Code requires workers to work 40 to 48 hours for 5 to 6 days a week.
“These arrangements give employers and employees flexibility in fixing hours of work compatible with business requirements and the employees’ need for a balanced work-life,” Baguio City Rep. Mark Go, one of the authors of the bill, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The workday arrangement remains optional for companies.
When asked whether working 12 hours a day for 4 days won’t be tiring, Go told Rappler, “You have rest day for 3 days. That’s the advantage. You work 4 days but you are given 3 days rest days. So that will reinvigorate already the people working for companies.”
For the measure to become a law, however, it needs to have a counterpart legislation in the Senate.
