Did you think Germany was the country of efficiency? Not at all. At least according to Friedrich Merz, who has just declared that his fellow countrymen have become too lazy (how much does that remind us of that “Italians are choosy” from some time ago?). The new chancellor wants to revolutionize work in Germany by increasing the weekly working hours to a mandatory 40 hours, and has already made it known that “with the four-day week we will not maintain the prosperity of the country”.
In short, enough relaxing: it's time to get back to toiling. But there's a small problem with this narrative. Economists who have been studying work in Germany for years have discovered that the real issue is not the hours on the clock, but what happens in those hours.
Merz's crusade against free time
Friedrich Merz has never hidden his views on work in Germany. During his speech at the CDU Economic Council, the Chancellor took a swipe at the work-life balance:
“With a four-day workweek and work-life balance, we will not be able to maintain the prosperity of this country.”
His proposal is as clear as a punch in the stomach: replace the daily hours limit with a weekly cap for 40 hours, freely distributable over four or five days.
The coalition agreement with the SPD provides for this reform to become a reality “quite soon,” as Merz himself explained. In theory, a worker could squeeze everything into four 10-hour days, enjoying a long weekend. But the chancellor doesn’t see it that way: for him, it’s just a way to make Germans work harder, not to give them more free time.
Merz's strategy starts from an indisputable fact: Germans work only 1.343 hours a year, the lowest among all 38 OECD countries. It is much less than the Americans (1.799 hours), of the English (1.524) or of the Greeks (1.897). And this, according to the Chancellor, explains why the German economy is stagnating.
But is it true? The numbers on employment in Germany tell a different story
The problem with Merz's reading is that it simply does not hold up to reality. As studies published in Nature Scientific Reports, Reducing working hours in Germany has increased life satisfaction without affecting productivity. Researchers found that 28% of Germans' satisfaction is due to improvements in health linked to more sustainable working hours.
But there is more. While Merz preaches against “national laziness”, Germany remains the world's fourth largest economy and first in Europe for exports of advanced technology. Evidently, working less does not mean producing less. Or at least, not always.
Another element that escapes Merz's narrative concerns women. As economists point out, Many German women work part-time due to lack of childcare, not out of laziness. 21% of German workers work part-time, compared to the OECD average of 15%. And solving this problem would require investments in daycares, not sermons on dedication to work.
The demographic dilemma that Merz does not want to see
The real challenge for the German economy lies not in the stopwatch, but in the calendar. Germany is aging faster than other industrialized countries: In the coming decades, the number of people retiring will greatly exceed the number of people entering the labor market. This means that overall there will be less work., regardless of individual hours.
The solution is not to make those who already work sweat more, but to increase the number of workers. According to Marcel Fratzscher According to the German Institute for Economic Research, 400.000 more migrants are needed each year for the next four years. It's a shame that Merz has made the fight against immigration one of his main themes.
While the Chancellor continues to preach against work-life balance, German unions are preparing for battle. And maybe they are right: as we have seen in other contexts, the future of work is not about going backwards, but about finding smarter ways to organize our time.
Even if it means making some chancellor angry.
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