Employees in Belgium will now have the right to ask for a four-day workweek as the country is restructuring its labor laws due to the pandemic, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo stated on Tuesday.

"The Covid period has forced us to work more flexibly - the labor market needs to adapt to that," he told journalists after overnight talks among ministers regarding the changes.

The four-day workweek would be extraordinary as it would allow the employees to work for 38 hours in total within four days instead of five, which will give them the possibility to permanent long weekends, and without any deduction in salary.

Employees who wish to have a four-day workweek need the boss's approval, and such managed flexibility would most probably be an option for big firms, where the workload can be more distributed easily among employees.

Unions will discuss a draft bill before any changes are made, then the Council of State will scrutinize the legislation before the parliament votes.

Observers are expecting it to come into effect around the middle of 2022. According to the OECD, the average usual workweek in Belgium is 35.5 hours. That compares with 38.7 hours in the United States, 36.5 weekly hours in France, and 36.3 hours in the United Kingdom.

Belgium follows the steps of other countries such as Japan and Iceland. Other reforms the Belgian government agreed on are individual employee access to training and a test program that allows night-work for employees in e-commerce.