Pedro Mota Soares, former minister of Solidarity, Employment and Social Security, warned that Portugal faces a structural productivity problem during the conference "Labor Law Reform: changes to labor legislation," organized by AIP – Associação Industrial Portuguesa. The former government official considered that, although there are initiatives such as the transposition of the wage directive and cybersecurity measures, these do not represent true structural reforms. Referring to the Draghi report, he highlighted that Europe has a productivity deficit of about 20 percentage points compared to the United States, and that Portugal is even further behind, with 28 percentage points below the European average.
According to Pedro Mota Soares, this deficit results from factors such as the lower qualifications of workers, concentration in low-productivity sectors and "enormous operational rigidity." The former minister warned that any wage increases must be accompanied by productivity gains, on pain of compromising the competitiveness of Portuguese companies.
Pedro Mota Soares advocated for various changes to labor legislation, including the framework for outsourcing, revision of strike rules to ensure greater mobility for workers and goods, more flexibility in work time organization through individual time banks, expansion of fixed-term contracts to facilitate young people's entry into the labor market, and a more flexible remote work regime that combines remote and in-person work.
Finally, the former minister defended a new generation of collective contracts and emphasized the importance of Social Dialogue as an instrument to promote reforms and ensure stability. "It is a call for action for everyone," he stated, considering this the appropriate space to build reforms that ensure social peace and stability in Portugal.
