Does Germany need to work harder? Its government seems to think so

German productivity

Sick leave is increasing

A study

In response, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germans need to work harder to make the economy more productive, as it hasn’t grown much in the past five years.

“We must, in this country, work more again and, above all, more efficiently,” he said in May. “It is not with the four-day work week and ‘work-life balance’ that we will be able to maintain our prosperity!”

The OECD research is supported

Across Europe, the average number of hours worked

In addition to working fewer hours, each hour is less productive. German labor productivity per hour worked was 1.7% lower in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2023, according to European Central Bank data. It’s also been essentially flat since 2009.

Many note that with falling productivity and 11% of the workforce set to retire in the next 10 years, there are real concerns about how Germany will fund people’s social security. Immigration could be a solution, as highlighted

Some argue for the need to rescind a public holiday, as Denmark did in 2023; the current French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, is causing a stir

Merz, for his part, would like to abolish this daily working limit while still maintaining the 40-hour workweek, allowing working days to become more flexible. Others want to encourage people of retirement age, 67 and above, to continue working and earn up to €2,000 per month, tax-exempt, thereby encouraging more people to stay working for longer.

Another issue across Europe, more generally, is that people are retiring earlier, citing burnout and general exhaustion, a trend affecting the entire working population. In fact, unions are focusing less on wage increases and more on gaining more time off from work.

Recent data from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index Special Report finds that many workers are suffering from an “infinite work day.” After analyzing “trillions” of data points across all its products, it appears that most workers are unable to disconnect completely, as they are involved in a meeting, email, or notification every two minutes, receiving 153 messages every working day, according to Morning Brew.

On top of that, workers are calling in sick more often. In 2023, statistics show that the average worker in Germany took sick leave for 15.1 days, the highest recorded figure to date. Its neighbor, France, is also suffering under the highest-ever levels of sick leave; Les Echos reports that for the first six months of 2024, the cost of French workers taking sick leave increased

All of this suggests it might be an uphill battle to bring people back into the labor market. However, with an aging workforce and economic stagnation, the balance between work hours and productivity remains a critical issue; it has never been more important to determine the difference between who works the most, the best, or the most efficiently.