Spain to boost productivity with holiday bump

Unions and employers in Spain have agreed to shift public holidays to Mondays or Fridays, the Wall Street Journal reports. The vacation bump is meant to stop Spaniards from skipping extra days every time a holiday falls in the middle of the week. The practice, known as bridging, is said to cost the Spanish economy hundreds of millions of Euros every year. Those in the hospitality business are not impressed. "Anybody who thinks we have to continue this stupid austerity to save the euro is totally wrong," Adolfo Castro, who runs a 19th-century lodge near Madrid, told the paper.