Growth problems
According to the so-called Council of Wise Men, an independent economic policy advisory body working alongside the Berlin government, the long-term growth potential of the German economy has decreased from 2.5% in the 1970s to only 0.5% today. In addition, the energy crisis of the past two years further aggravated the problems of the economy based on the manufacturing industry, so international organizations or analytical and research companies formulated particularly unfavorable growth forecasts for this year.
According to the forecast published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week, Germany will perform the worst among the world’s major economies this year: the IMF estimates the growth rate of German GDP this year at only 0.2%. Meanwhile, the IMF expects GDP growth of 0.8% for the Eurozone and 2.7% for the USA this year.
Did they overdo the work-life balance?
According to Rainer Dulger, president of the German employers’ association (BDA), the problems of the German economy are partly caused by a change in attitude among employees.
The issue of work-life balance seems to have been exaggerated
Dulger said – according to EurActiv’s report – at a conference organized by the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).
While the number of people employed has grown from just under 40 million in the 1990s to 45.9 million by 2023, the number of hours worked has remained unchanged overall, due to a reduction in working hours, Dulger said. According to him, work should be valued more by the state, but also by society.
Dulger believes that the fact that the German government passed a law last year that makes it easier to get a job in Germany will not be enough to deal with the current labor shortage, as well as the fact that more and more people will retire in the next few years. for skilled immigrants from non-EU member states. According to Dulger, it will also be necessary to “increase the number of hours worked by the people already working here.”
Dulger’s opinion is shared by the CEO of the largest German financial institution, Deutsche Bank. According to Christian Sewing, foreign investors are only willing to invest in Germany if they see a high level of motivation among employees. “I can say that during my travels I have been asked more than once what happened to us Germans and what happened to the creative and innovative force that characterized us for decades,” Sewing said at the conference.
Only in the Netherlands do they work less
Criticizing proposals to introduce a four-day work week in certain sectors, Sewing cited data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to which Germany has the lowest annual working hours per employee (1,341 hours) within the OECD. (In Hungary, this data corresponds to 1,700 hours, which puts our country in the middle of the OECD countries).
Among others, IG Metall, Germany’s largest trade union, is pushing for the introduction of the four-day work week. The organization representing approximately 2.17 million steel industry workers is calling for a reduction in weekly working hours from 35 to 32 hours with the same wages. According to the interest group, with the four-day week and more flexible working hours, it would be possible to react much better to the changes accompanying the green transition of the economy, so that the decrease in the demand for the necessary work could be handled without the employees having to fear layoffs. Some companies have already introduced their own solution in this area, for example at the steel manufacturer Thyssenkrupp, the company’s employees can choose between 33 or 35 hours of work per week. Among the EU member states, Belgium is one of the leading countries in introducing a four-day working week, and in November 2022, it adopted a law that allows employees to decide whether to work four or five days a week without a reduction in wages. Within the framework of the four-day working week model, of course, in addition to the salary, work tasks are not reduced, so the employee can achieve by increasing efficiency that he gets three days off per week instead of the previous two.
And according to Eurostat data for 2022, they show that the average weekly working time in Germany is 35.3 hours. Within the EU, people work less than this only in the Netherlands (33.2 hours). (Employed people aged 20-64 work an average of 39.6 hours per week in Hungary, which is the sixth highest weekly working time in the EU.)
According to Sewing, foreign investors “primarily want to invest in Europe and Germany”, but they are also concerned about the performance and motivation of employees. “For me, it is clear what can be deduced from this: we have to work more, of course in a different way, but also harder. We have to understand that we have to work for our prosperity before we distribute it,” concluded the head of Deutsche Bank.
The opinion of the two company managers also coincides with the position of the president of the FDP and the government’s finance minister, Christian Lindner, who recently came up with the proposal that paid overtime should be made tax-free in order to encourage employees to work extra.
“If we want to be at the top in terms of living standards and social security, and if we want to represent the top ecological and moral standards, then we must also prepare to show top performance again,” Lindner said at the conference organized by the FDP.
Working hours versus productivity
In relation to the proposal of the managers of BDA and Deutsche Bank, critics of the idea may point out that, according to surveys, longer working hours are typically associated with a decrease in productivity. This was also brought up by those who criticized Indian software billionaire Narayana Murthy’s proposal last fall, according to which Indian youth should work 70 hours a week in order for the economy of the world’s most populous country to catch up with that of China.
Interestingly, Murthy is just the II. He cited post-World War II Germany as an example for India to follow. According to him, Germany’s post-war growth was due to Germans working harder out of patriotic pride. In this regard, however, Indian economist Mihir Sharma has pointed out that while German workers certainly worked more than, say, British workers in the 1950s, their total working hours were between 45 and 50 hours per week, and this began to decline by the end of the decade , as unions became stronger. According to Sharma, the only example in this field that Murthy could have rightly pointed to is South Korea, where in the 1960s working hours were raised to the world’s highest level, and then in the following decades they were reduced by a third.
Cover image source: Getty Images
