CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela specified yesterday that public sector employees, save those in the food industry, would receive Fridays off until a drought stops hurting hydropower generation.
With the OPEC country reeling from a power crunch, President Nicolas Maduro said this week that Fridays would be considered holidays for the next 60 days.
The leftist government’s official gazette said the move applies to government workers and excludes the food sector.
Venezuela’s grave economic crisis already has grains, meat, dairy and vegetables running short. Lines of hundreds sometimes snake around supermarkets, so a four-day work week in that sector would likely have worsened the scarcity.
Still, Maduro’s measure has sparked ridicule from his political opponents, who say it will aggravate an acute recession and demonstrates he is not governing seriously.
“Just because Maduro doesn’t work Monday to Friday, Saturday or Sunday, doesn’t mean we Venezuelans are like that,” said opposition politician Maria Corina Machado. “What we want is to keep working, and for you, Maduro, to go.”
