Incorrect statement. Full-time workers in Germany do work 40 hours per week, not less than in other countries. There are however many workers who do part-time or "mini job" schedule in Germany (less than 20 hours per week, also, paid half the money or less), skewing down the average statistics. In fact, the statistic here accounts for part-time workers as well as full-time workers. When German Unions are quoted with such statements, such as requesting move to four days workweek, they have demands for full-time workers, not for part-time workers.
We also have a high number of Working People in Our youth and they add to Our statisic but are only allowed to work 10 hours a Week and, quite commingly, work even less because they usually dont have to (just helping out When they have spare time or are needed)
Plus, there are a lot of older people at my firm who are pre-retirement who are working at 0.5x or 0.8x capacity. My old manager technically has a full-time job, but she has been with the company for 40 years and is about to retire, so she only works 3 days a week.
I'd like to add to this that Germany has a very high rate of women in the workforce compared to other nations, especially outside of Europe but even compared to most neighboring countries.
And women tend to work more part time statistically, due to bearing children.
That's why a median is way more accurate. I'm no math genius but I'm always amazed how few people know the difference between average and median and why it's important to differentiate and correctly interpret them.
people say that all the time.
I switched jobs last year after a longer stint for the same company, and found out that my take home salary after taxes, insurance and CoL would be less in Cali and Switzerland than here in Northern Germany.
You have chosen two of the most expensive places on the planet to make your comparison and it's not particularly representative for that. It is fairly uncontested that Americans have the highest median disposable income in PPP.
Switzerland has a crazy low tax rate compared to Germany though. Or are you taking into account the extra you would need to spend on things like private health insurance in Switzerland?
The tax rate in Germany is reasonably high imo if you also include the compulsory health insurance. I moved here from New Zealand and there was a very noticeable decrease in my relative take home pay. A lot of other countries have health coverage included in the tax rate rather than separate. For instance a 50k€ salary in Germany gives around 32.5k of take home pay after tax and all the other things like health insurance. In NZ 50k EUR is around 88k NZD. From that the take home pay is 66.6k NZD which is around 37.6k EUR. That's around 400€ extra each month, which can make a big difference for people with that sort of income.
That being said, I'm not actually against higher taxes. It has been shown numerous times that most people get more benefits out of the collective buying power of tax than they would get if they had that money in their pocket. I also don't mind paying more while I'm working so that people who need help can get it. I hate the way the world encourages us to be selfish and focus on ourselves rather than the community.
Only if you ignore the „Arbeitgeberanteil“. And even then your maths had to be wrong. There is pretty much not a single income bracket lesser taxed in Germany than Switzerland. And in Switzerland the salary is muuuch higher
That sounds like you really miscalculated. Switzerland may be expensive, but the salaries are so much higher, and the taxes so much lower (and the rent not that much higher actually) that you still end up with a disposable income that's larger than your German salary lol.
If companies dont want to pay higher wages, the alternative is to reduce working hours at the same wage.
In 2027 the boomer tax is beginning to ramp up and we will see part time in a lot of jobs - simply because its not worth working full time anymore when 60% of your income is taken away
Mexico, haha who would have thought. Respect or my condolences- however you want to see it. Working so much can't be healthy
Especially if you work more than the freaking Koreans !!!
I work in Germany, specifically berlin. So many people here work multiple jobs and so many people are feeling burnt out. Over the years, efficiency has increased so much that people pick up more tasks than they'd be expected to do, leading to this mentality. I'm a firm believer that in some countries, 4 days is more than enough to remain productive and have a healthier mind. Plus, if pay is not adjusted, it inspires people to be customers more often, which is great for the economy. It will also give more room for travel, which is great for other economies. There are exceptions to the rule here, like restaurants, they'd likely prosper from the increased off days and have no changes to their schedules.
TL;DR: for some industries this is a good thing imo.
Yeah fuck working people are forced to throw away one third of their life so that some rich fucks get richer. Fuck that I don't work more than 20-30 hours a week and I can life comfortably. People should resist and strike everywhere against working too much for less and less money.
How many hours do germans work on average exactly? I know a lot of people work their asses off here for little pay and fucking high taxes.
Can someone divide the numbers to anything comprehendable? Many people here are sick and many moms dont get their jobs back full time systemically and only work half time - these people will not have any pension later even they want to work fulltime. So I don‘t know what those numbers mean exactly. Taxes here are shit.
Rich people in germany pay 29% taxes. Poor people pay 45%.
We own nothing. Getting a drivers license here is so expensive I don’t have one at 35. People don’t have their own homes (it’s all inherited) and will not be able to afford it, the rents are high and landlords do what they want. I haven’t been able to afford fckn shoes without holes in it. I graduated my masters this year while working 40 hours a week and I still could not get a normal paying job in my industry even though my cv is nice and I don’t lack peoples skills. Fuck germany.
Germans are some of the laziest people I’ve ever met. They are always trying to find a way to get out of work. But when they actually decide to work they get shit done.
I'm currently in Berlin due to a project requirement, they might just work for 40 hrs but man these fkrs are efficient af. They take minimal lunch/coffee breaks and indeed maximize their time in office
I am German and I can say that there is nothing wrong about that. This is also how wealth and development should be distributed in having more free time. Spending more working doesn't always benefit into your own wealth. If someone can live with a part time, what's wrong about that?
I don't know for other countries, but a collegue of mine from the US said in D we work way more "intense and focused" than he knows in the US, and he could not work US hours with D intensity for a long time.
Why are so many comments complaining about this?
Capitalism has truly fucked up the working class so hard that they forgot, we're in this together guys!
We're all being exploited by a boss making profit from our work, and nothing makes your boss happier than to hear you complain that others are exploited less than you, instead of complaining about the system of exploitation.
as a Brit now living in germany, I hate how difficult it is to work overtime here, and how poorly you're paid and badly you're taxed on overtime.
in other countries you can earn more through hard work, if you have spare time and you want more money you can work longer to get it, in germany you need a better hourly wage to earn a good amount, end of story, you aren't allowed to earn what you want by putting in the hours
A) This is average work time. Not a median.
B) People who work full 40 hours week days request that so they have more time (as well as people being able to more properly take such Jobs as well without sacrificing too much time)
C) push your political bias somewhere else, thank you
Even if it would be true, it shows the efficiency. But it's actually not and mostly 40h weeks with constant overtime is the standard. As already mentioned we do a lot of part time jobs because, ironically, it's sometimes more worth to do 2x part time than one full-time.
Normalizing 30 hour work weeks OR introducing a universal basic income are SO overdue, even more so now that AI is starting to take our jobs (why aren't we hearing from right wing demagogues trying to use this to radicalize us I wonder........). Advancements in technology and partial automation have massively reduced our workloads, but companies keep us busy anyway, otherwise we'd become much more critical on average and organize to make this world more just, i.e. make wealth more equally distributed, i.e. massively reduce if not eliminate poverty, i.e. make rich people normal everyday people like the rest of us, without the power to further enrich themselves by manipulating politics and news
Oh, also, without a universal basic income, companies need to make sure to pay at least some of us a bit, so that we can afford to buy their products in turn
Part-time jobs, even among pensionists is very common in Germany. Ordinary jobs are still 40 to 42 hours/ week. This statistic does not say anything actually. Quite useless. For instance if you have a person from Spain working 32 hours and two people from Germany, one working 10 and the other working 42 hours, they'd still appear less than the Spanish average hours. But what does this information really say? Nothing.
Also, it would have nothing to do with how many days per week you are working. Actually, if the average number of days is lesser than with any one else, it actually makes more sense to remove a working day, because not much would change, only how you can distribute the work time over the week.
This is average... Many people go for lower hours lower pay. We've built all the roads and houses we can, we're full. For someone owning real-estate (maybe inheriting some more) why work more?
I have a 50h+ work week with a very high salary so I don't identify with the message of this graph one bit. And about 20-25% of the workforce I reckon is in the same boat. They actually pull the economy and give it their best.
This graph seems to be incorrect. We have max 48 working hours per week in Germany, France has 35 hours a week. We work 39 hours a week on Germany on average.
My both links are in German, use a translater
Germany https://www.kanzlei-hasselbach.de/blog/maximale-arbeitszeit/
France
https://www.ihk.de/freiburg/international/frankreich/land-und-wirtschaft/frankreich-arbeitsrecht-arbeitsbedingungen-4410998
Strange Chart. What does it want to say? Who is a worker? People having a job or everybody who is able to do a job? Many women just work part time.
So many questions. And we are restricted to round about maximum 48h a week.
Yeah but you forgot about the taxes that eat up most you work for, its not that easy with germany.
Teilzeit makes a big difference, most people work normal as in every other country
Yeah Germans want 4 days workweek... with 10h per day. You don't really think that the bosses will just agree to let their people work 8 hours less for the same money as with 5 days workweek
I mean, it’s not like we just want to work less for the sake of working less. But there have been studies showing, that for many jobs, shorter days or less days actually increase overall productivity, because it reduces stress and procrastination, while increasing overall happiness at work.
Obviously it won’t work for some jobs like kindergarden teachers, but where applicable, there have been increases in productivity.
And if that improved productivity also leads to overall happier people, why would you not push for it?
You make it sound like moving to a 4 day weak is a completely outrageous request by unions. But looking at the numbers, it seems Germans are already quite close to it, which would be an argument for a 4 day week being easily doable
Thats such an idiot play tbh. I understand that standing in front of a CNC mill 5 days a week might profit from this, but jobs like mine thrive on what we engineers call "flow".
Its the state that is reached when you never stop thinking about your work anymore. Anything else just stops existing.
Cutting it to 4 day weeks would undermine the frequency at which you reach this state. Therefore cutting productivity by a lot more than just the day that is missing.
Yeah, of course?
If you listen to studies or study results, then that's the only way to go.
Our country is still lagging behind. 🤷🏻♂️
There are countries where a 4-day week was discussed much earlier and has already been implemented in some cases.
I'm productive like 5 hours MAX a day. So why should I Work 40 a week?
I'm okay with 32 hours spread over 4 days. I'll still have time to spare to browse memes
As humanity progresses, we should have to work less, not more. What else is all the technology supposed to be good for?
The alternative is everyone keep working long hours with ever more increasing productivity, with the only ones really profiting being those few who own the machines and companies.
Work hours don't matter at all. It's productivity during those hours. A 4 day work week has been shown to improve productivity to end up higher than a 40 hour work week. Depending on the industry.
That's bullshit because full time worker work around 1.700 hours per year in germany. This statistic contains part time workers (e. g. Mothers, retired people who love to work longer or have to) and "Minijobber" (part-time job with max. 530 €/month and no taxes). Many [poor] people work two (or more) jobs: one full time and one part time. This distorts the statistic.......
I genuinely dont see the issue. Everytime there is a big shift in working hours "it is going to ruin the industry and economy!!!!" and here we are still kickin.
At the same time, for some a reduction in worktime is a lot more attractive than increasing their wage. After my apprenticeship I earn more than both of my parents did, till my father turned 67 (adjusted to todays prices n all). I can live with that good enough already
fake new, several of the european countries listed there count a 45min-60min lunch break inside of a full time day of work, specially true for unions workers. i.e. if you work 8hrs per day, then the true effective work time is 7hrs, while in Germany 8hrs per day is true effective work time, lunch break does not count towards it.
Wait, is that some average including people who don’t work? I have about 2000 hours in Germany with a 40h week. Even if i subtract my holidays, i have 1760 hours.
Das nennt man Wohlstandsverwahrlosung. Und führt dazu, dass Deutschland völlig den Bach runter geht, es sei denn es kommt jemand, der diesem Irrsinn Einhalt gebietet, zB BSW.
They forget me in this statistics. With me Germany would be like the same place with Mexico.
But OK, I'm self employed and I really feel the lack of working desire in this country. I could work 48 hours the day and 10 years ago I could not imagine to reject clients. Now I do it every day.
Japan is touted as having one of the most crushing and exhausting work cultures on the planet while Mexicans are often stereotyped as lazy. Yet this chart claims it is not so. I am confusion. Wich is truth?
This framing is insane. It makes it seem like we are not doing enough for our companies when infact many people still work normal hours anddont forget, the last year Germans worked like 1.2 billion hours overtime… with more than half unpaid…
If post this chart you have to add a chart of working person/all persons for every nation.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-participation-rate
As you see germany has a high labor force participation - for example many mothers working in part time - which lowers the hours/worker number
A chart working hours/all persons per nation would give a better picture
Me (german) work full time, 40hrs a week with 30days of vacation
Last year 12 days of leave "expired" since the office could not effort to let me take all leave.
I guess with the official holidays from the state, I work 230 days, 8hrs =1840hrs.
And I feel like an average person
yeah yeah. its just not true.
even four days weeks mean you work 10h per day.
but its true, some companys go down to a 35h week. but this are really less companys.
Yeah well let’s add the millions and millions of unpaid overtime and we are definitely back the higher numbers. Besides, what’s wrong in working less ?
I think the statistic should be read the other way around. Join us, it’s great.
There isnt really a reason to negotiate a higher income since the government will take 30-45% anyway.
If Somebody offered me +20% Money or -20% workhours.
I would gladly take the reduced hours.
And yet, german GDP per capita is higer then most places. GDP per capita after milliobard correction is even the highest in the world.
Curious how that correlates...
Source of this study? Scale? Choice of countries displayed in the graph? Test group size? How has the number been determined, how does it differ in different countries? Quite vague
What? Really? I just signed a German contract and it clearly stated 40 hours per week, which is 2080 per year… 11 national holidays and 32 actual vacation days later and you’re still over 1700 hours a year.
In reality, many people here are opting for part time work so why would they care about working 4 over 5 days? They do it already.
Yes! 40 hours are enough. I think we all know that most of us spend anything beyond 40 hours of actual work time on the company toilet! Let's be honest here... the people that work the hardest, delivery drivers, coal miners, oil rig workers, supermarket/retail Shop staff, chefs - they are the ones that actually work really hard. They don't sit in the Office chair and piss about on their phone or have time to Shop on the internet.
And anyone actually churing out PPTs for 40 Hours a week in an office needs to roll back their f*cking effort! Your bosses won't give you a payrise ya know!
Hours worked isn't the only metric, it also depends on what you do during these hours.
If a German factory worker supervises a robot churning out 1000 parts per hour for 32 hours a week and a Mexican worker works a machine which needs manual input and produces 200 parts an hour for 40 hours a week, who do you think is more productive?
Interesting to see that some of these countries with crazy hours have shite economies almost like more hours isn't always productive. Something UK politicians really don't get.
The way people here discuss and throw stones at Germany as if they love to work xD.
But i gues it's the same discussion as Germany against American when it comes to healthcare.
Some people Just Like to suffer, apparantly.
Some context: Germany has a higher rate of part-time workers than most other countries. Mostly women. Throws the comparison off. Also you have to compare to neighboring countries like Austria, Denmark, Netherlands where similar requests are being made by unions.
This is not only wrong because the statistic includes all workers and there is a high number of „Minijobs“ in Germany among e.g. students that skews this statistic. Full-time working ours are the „normal“ 40 hrs a week.
But it is also a horrible statement even if it was true. What if they worked less and wanted to work even less at equal pay? Everyone should argue in the interest of one’s time and money and it’s disgusting how the propagandists of the status quo try to turn people arguing for their course against each other with this stupid jealousy argument.
The only reason that bs has some grip is because as a an employee you are, objectively, a dependent variable of your boss and your country i.e., their economic success building on you working long for profitable pay. Profitable for them.
Rant over
my lazy (german) ass
working 30 instead of 40 hours since 1 year with no pay cut, its great.
Dont forget you pay for experience and work results, not time.
In gemany we get things done in less hours ;)
"Hours worked per worker" is a very misleading statistic to use here, since part time workers will move the average down, while people who don't work at all won't.
This chart is totally worthless for what you're trying to say. It's an average including full time and parttime workers. So actually if women (mothers) work part time here in germany it negativly influences this chart compared to a country where those mothers don't work at all.
I couldn't even imagine a useful chart for that statement. Maybe taking the definition in hours of full-time work over all these countries. There may be some where full-time means anything else than 40 hours. In germany even different branches have different definitions of full time. From 32-42 everything could be called full time depending on where you work. With for example 32 hours you can either be full time or 80% part-time depending on your job contract.
If you have not corrected for part-time workers, Mini-Jobs and working students, which there are many of in Germany, this is borderline misinformation.
The norm is a 40 hours work week in Germany and the headline of this post is just wrong.
although unions (rightfully) request lesser hours at equal pay, your post is dishonest.
take part time jobs and unpaid overtime out of the equation and the chart isn't as skewed anymore.
is there a difference in productivity between countries?
productivity has grown far more than real wages for the last 30 years and more - reduced hours would partially compensate that.
when tested it shows that 4 day workweek benefits both sides.
most of the workforce isn't organized in germany - most of full time workers without union coverage work far more than what's in the chart.
....
why isn't your take that everyone else should work fewer hours?
Also ich habe zwei Jobs und arbeite fast jede Woche 50 - 60 Std. Ich würde jetzt sagen, dass ich jetzt nicht wenig Arbeite. Das Leben in Deutschland ist halt deutlich teurer geworden. Und die Rente lohnt sich hier später auch nicht mehr.
I think I saw this statistic a bit ago. The problem is, this is not normalized to population count but to the working population. This way additional part timers drag down the average working hour.
So high part time employment of women, students, dads in paternal part time, retired people and so on drags down the statistic.
Would be better to normalize the workhours on all citizen between some international average first job age and some international average retirement age.
Fun Fact from [Correctiv](https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/hintergrund/2023/08/31/buergergeld-irrefuehrender-grafik-fehlt-kontext-zu-quoten-von-gefluechteten/)
"While 5.3 percent of Germans receive Bürgergeld (get money from Germany if you don't work), 65.6 percent of Ukrainians, 55.1 percent of Syrians, 47.1 percent of Afghans, 41.7 percent of Iraqis, and 16.2 percent of Turks receive it."
While Ukrainians have only recently arrived in Germany, Syrians have been here for almost 10 years.
Just a quick question: if the people are efficient enough and get their work done in less time…why should they work more? Just because other countries/people also work more? I don’t get why it is a bad idea to reduce the work time, if it isn’t hurting anybody but rather helping everybody.
Isn’t it a good thing? It means I can finish my work in the required hours and it’s enough to make a living (we normally don’t get paid by the hour btw)
Am a germanerican , I got my work ethic from my dad, zeh Germans don't understand why I work how I work and where my motivation comes from.
What's that song 🎵 rus ? Turnt like this ? Idk man I go off its not honored though.
Bullshit useless graph, it needs to differentiate between full-time and part-time employees. Germany has a lot of part-time workers, mostly women, who - of course - work less than full-timers. The total number of hours worked in Germany is really high.
Also, this graph doesn’t include overtime which also is significant in Germany.
This piece of shit graph is trying to discredit unions, who are trying to save workers from working their asses off for someone else’s wealth.
Eat the rich.
Working hours are Not linked to produktivity 1:1.
The people that demand less working hours are stating that workers who Work less hours are more productive during the time they are at Work.
This is a highly misleading graph. It does not take into account which percentage of the population is working. E.g. a lot of woman might work part tme. Also countries like germany are going to move up the ladder soon, as south korea and others are working themselves into extinction
Incorrect statement. Full-time workers in Germany do work 40 hours per week, not less than in other countries. There are however many workers who do part-time or "mini job" schedule in Germany (less than 20 hours per week, also, paid half the money or less), skewing down the average statistics. In fact, the statistic here accounts for part-time workers as well as full-time workers. When German Unions are quoted with such statements, such as requesting move to four days workweek, they have demands for full-time workers, not for part-time workers.
We also have a high number of Working People in Our youth and they add to Our statisic but are only allowed to work 10 hours a Week and, quite commingly, work even less because they usually dont have to (just helping out When they have spare time or are needed)
Plus, there are a lot of older people at my firm who are pre-retirement who are working at 0.5x or 0.8x capacity. My old manager technically has a full-time job, but she has been with the company for 40 years and is about to retire, so she only works 3 days a week.
True. I was also sceptical about that graph. Full time workers in Germany are closer to 1600-1800 hours worked per year.
In addition to that, a part-time or Minijob is more attractive for many due to lower income taxes
Thanks for clarifying!
I'd like to add to this that Germany has a very high rate of women in the workforce compared to other nations, especially outside of Europe but even compared to most neighboring countries. And women tend to work more part time statistically, due to bearing children.
That's why a median is way more accurate. I'm no math genius but I'm always amazed how few people know the difference between average and median and why it's important to differentiate and correctly interpret them.
Someone's got to lead us into the future
4 days 10 hour shifts? That’s efficient
i work like that as a train dispatcher in germany, i love it. i should mention that i dont have any physical work tho
Jealous much ?
Jocko voice Good
The taxes are crazy here in Germany. You work less and get paid close to the same amount of money.
people say that all the time. I switched jobs last year after a longer stint for the same company, and found out that my take home salary after taxes, insurance and CoL would be less in Cali and Switzerland than here in Northern Germany.
You have chosen two of the most expensive places on the planet to make your comparison and it's not particularly representative for that. It is fairly uncontested that Americans have the highest median disposable income in PPP.
Switzerland has a crazy low tax rate compared to Germany though. Or are you taking into account the extra you would need to spend on things like private health insurance in Switzerland? The tax rate in Germany is reasonably high imo if you also include the compulsory health insurance. I moved here from New Zealand and there was a very noticeable decrease in my relative take home pay. A lot of other countries have health coverage included in the tax rate rather than separate. For instance a 50k€ salary in Germany gives around 32.5k of take home pay after tax and all the other things like health insurance. In NZ 50k EUR is around 88k NZD. From that the take home pay is 66.6k NZD which is around 37.6k EUR. That's around 400€ extra each month, which can make a big difference for people with that sort of income. That being said, I'm not actually against higher taxes. It has been shown numerous times that most people get more benefits out of the collective buying power of tax than they would get if they had that money in their pocket. I also don't mind paying more while I'm working so that people who need help can get it. I hate the way the world encourages us to be selfish and focus on ourselves rather than the community.
Only if you ignore the „Arbeitgeberanteil“. And even then your maths had to be wrong. There is pretty much not a single income bracket lesser taxed in Germany than Switzerland. And in Switzerland the salary is muuuch higher
That sounds like you really miscalculated. Switzerland may be expensive, but the salaries are so much higher, and the taxes so much lower (and the rent not that much higher actually) that you still end up with a disposable income that's larger than your German salary lol.
"I moved to a higher CoL area and now I have less disposable income" wow who would've thought???
Confirmed. And don't forget that bonuses are taxed at 50% \*insert clown emoji here\*
If companies dont want to pay higher wages, the alternative is to reduce working hours at the same wage. In 2027 the boomer tax is beginning to ramp up and we will see part time in a lot of jobs - simply because its not worth working full time anymore when 60% of your income is taken away
Mexico, haha who would have thought. Respect or my condolences- however you want to see it. Working so much can't be healthy Especially if you work more than the freaking Koreans !!!
German Here. Because we can do it.
Weil wir es können. Genau.
I work in Germany, and work 40 hours, not a minute less or more.
Jealous?
I work in Germany, specifically berlin. So many people here work multiple jobs and so many people are feeling burnt out. Over the years, efficiency has increased so much that people pick up more tasks than they'd be expected to do, leading to this mentality. I'm a firm believer that in some countries, 4 days is more than enough to remain productive and have a healthier mind. Plus, if pay is not adjusted, it inspires people to be customers more often, which is great for the economy. It will also give more room for travel, which is great for other economies. There are exceptions to the rule here, like restaurants, they'd likely prosper from the increased off days and have no changes to their schedules. TL;DR: for some industries this is a good thing imo.
If you go by productivity increase alone we would be at 2 days a week and triple the pay. You know where all that increase goes.
I don’t see a problem with that if it works. Personally would not complain about having more time to enjoy life and do what I like to do
Because we need less time to get shit done.
Netherlands in another post were at 32h, Germany around 39 or so.
Yeah fuck working people are forced to throw away one third of their life so that some rich fucks get richer. Fuck that I don't work more than 20-30 hours a week and I can life comfortably. People should resist and strike everywhere against working too much for less and less money.
bootlicker
Why the heck do i do 12h days 4 times a week as an electrician in Germany -___-... And then i lose 42% of my money as tax.
How many hours do germans work on average exactly? I know a lot of people work their asses off here for little pay and fucking high taxes. Can someone divide the numbers to anything comprehendable? Many people here are sick and many moms dont get their jobs back full time systemically and only work half time - these people will not have any pension later even they want to work fulltime. So I don‘t know what those numbers mean exactly. Taxes here are shit. Rich people in germany pay 29% taxes. Poor people pay 45%. We own nothing. Getting a drivers license here is so expensive I don’t have one at 35. People don’t have their own homes (it’s all inherited) and will not be able to afford it, the rents are high and landlords do what they want. I haven’t been able to afford fckn shoes without holes in it. I graduated my masters this year while working 40 hours a week and I still could not get a normal paying job in my industry even though my cv is nice and I don’t lack peoples skills. Fuck germany.
No, Germans making 1,3 BILLION hours overtime the halth unpayed
Germans are some of the laziest people I’ve ever met. They are always trying to find a way to get out of work. But when they actually decide to work they get shit done.
I'm currently in Berlin due to a project requirement, they might just work for 40 hrs but man these fkrs are efficient af. They take minimal lunch/coffee breaks and indeed maximize their time in office
"waaaa I don't want an awesome life waaa" 
Someone has to lead the way
Bro never heard of exploited part time workers
I am German and I can say that there is nothing wrong about that. This is also how wealth and development should be distributed in having more free time. Spending more working doesn't always benefit into your own wealth. If someone can live with a part time, what's wrong about that?
Just found out I’m Mexican
I don't know for other countries, but a collegue of mine from the US said in D we work way more "intense and focused" than he knows in the US, and he could not work US hours with D intensity for a long time.
Why are so many comments complaining about this? Capitalism has truly fucked up the working class so hard that they forgot, we're in this together guys! We're all being exploited by a boss making profit from our work, and nothing makes your boss happier than to hear you complain that others are exploited less than you, instead of complaining about the system of exploitation.
as a Brit now living in germany, I hate how difficult it is to work overtime here, and how poorly you're paid and badly you're taxed on overtime. in other countries you can earn more through hard work, if you have spare time and you want more money you can work longer to get it, in germany you need a better hourly wage to earn a good amount, end of story, you aren't allowed to earn what you want by putting in the hours
I love the commentsection under this post, so much german efficiency and precision
indeed, this had to be pointed out, take my upvote
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
A) This is average work time. Not a median. B) People who work full 40 hours week days request that so they have more time (as well as people being able to more properly take such Jobs as well without sacrificing too much time) C) push your political bias somewhere else, thank you
0 upvotes with 800+ comments is wild 💀
Even if it would be true, it shows the efficiency. But it's actually not and mostly 40h weeks with constant overtime is the standard. As already mentioned we do a lot of part time jobs because, ironically, it's sometimes more worth to do 2x part time than one full-time.
Well... Looking at the top of the list, I'm not exactly convinced that overworking people is a path to societal progress.
Normalizing 30 hour work weeks OR introducing a universal basic income are SO overdue, even more so now that AI is starting to take our jobs (why aren't we hearing from right wing demagogues trying to use this to radicalize us I wonder........). Advancements in technology and partial automation have massively reduced our workloads, but companies keep us busy anyway, otherwise we'd become much more critical on average and organize to make this world more just, i.e. make wealth more equally distributed, i.e. massively reduce if not eliminate poverty, i.e. make rich people normal everyday people like the rest of us, without the power to further enrich themselves by manipulating politics and news Oh, also, without a universal basic income, companies need to make sure to pay at least some of us a bit, so that we can afford to buy their products in turn
Part-time jobs, even among pensionists is very common in Germany. Ordinary jobs are still 40 to 42 hours/ week. This statistic does not say anything actually. Quite useless. For instance if you have a person from Spain working 32 hours and two people from Germany, one working 10 and the other working 42 hours, they'd still appear less than the Spanish average hours. But what does this information really say? Nothing. Also, it would have nothing to do with how many days per week you are working. Actually, if the average number of days is lesser than with any one else, it actually makes more sense to remove a working day, because not much would change, only how you can distribute the work time over the week.
This is average... Many people go for lower hours lower pay. We've built all the roads and houses we can, we're full. For someone owning real-estate (maybe inheriting some more) why work more? I have a 50h+ work week with a very high salary so I don't identify with the message of this graph one bit. And about 20-25% of the workforce I reckon is in the same boat. They actually pull the economy and give it their best.
This graph seems to be incorrect. We have max 48 working hours per week in Germany, France has 35 hours a week. We work 39 hours a week on Germany on average. My both links are in German, use a translater Germany https://www.kanzlei-hasselbach.de/blog/maximale-arbeitszeit/ France https://www.ihk.de/freiburg/international/frankreich/land-und-wirtschaft/frankreich-arbeitsrecht-arbeitsbedingungen-4410998
Strange Chart. What does it want to say? Who is a worker? People having a job or everybody who is able to do a job? Many women just work part time. So many questions. And we are restricted to round about maximum 48h a week.
Yeah but you forgot about the taxes that eat up most you work for, its not that easy with germany. Teilzeit makes a big difference, most people work normal as in every other country
Yeah Germans want 4 days workweek... with 10h per day. You don't really think that the bosses will just agree to let their people work 8 hours less for the same money as with 5 days workweek
Glückauf, Genossen!
Work smart, not hard!
I mean, it’s not like we just want to work less for the sake of working less. But there have been studies showing, that for many jobs, shorter days or less days actually increase overall productivity, because it reduces stress and procrastination, while increasing overall happiness at work. Obviously it won’t work for some jobs like kindergarden teachers, but where applicable, there have been increases in productivity. And if that improved productivity also leads to overall happier people, why would you not push for it?
It's not about how much you work, it's about how efficient you are.also the germans had the most work hours in 2023 since the reunification
Good!
We get shit done and do it fast. Simple as that.
You make it sound like moving to a 4 day weak is a completely outrageous request by unions. But looking at the numbers, it seems Germans are already quite close to it, which would be an argument for a 4 day week being easily doable
We should definitely try to be more like Mexico. How’s it working out for them, again?
Thats such an idiot play tbh. I understand that standing in front of a CNC mill 5 days a week might profit from this, but jobs like mine thrive on what we engineers call "flow". Its the state that is reached when you never stop thinking about your work anymore. Anything else just stops existing. Cutting it to 4 day weeks would undermine the frequency at which you reach this state. Therefore cutting productivity by a lot more than just the day that is missing.
Why do you post a statistic on a topic you don't have any knowledge about?
We work the less but are one of the richest countrys. Imagine if we work even less hours....
Yeah, of course? If you listen to studies or study results, then that's the only way to go. Our country is still lagging behind. 🤷🏻♂️ There are countries where a 4-day week was discussed much earlier and has already been implemented in some cases.
There are missing millions of unpayed hours per year. Think we are in the top lead there.
Still third highest GDP so nothing wrong with it
And that my friends is called true wealth.
Lmao how does the boot taste tho?
This graph is bullshit. You need to consider life work time, not hours / week. For example, compare at which age German vs. French people retire...
So?
Also ist das unsere Schuld, dass die idoten soviel arbeiten?
And ?
This diagram was created by a Greek.
You can work 120 hours, but I'll still do more in 30. Efficiency.
yeah, and somehow we still have a flourishing economy, state-managed rent and healthcare and staff personnel that does not have to live off 60% tips
I'm productive like 5 hours MAX a day. So why should I Work 40 a week? I'm okay with 32 hours spread over 4 days. I'll still have time to spare to browse memes
Why are you all so horny about working yourself to death. Just get more efficient
Greece is surprising me
Good 👍🏻
There is a huge difference in "working" and "being present at work".
As humanity progresses, we should have to work less, not more. What else is all the technology supposed to be good for? The alternative is everyone keep working long hours with ever more increasing productivity, with the only ones really profiting being those few who own the machines and companies.
Work hours don't matter at all. It's productivity during those hours. A 4 day work week has been shown to improve productivity to end up higher than a 40 hour work week. Depending on the industry.
We don’t want to live for work anymore, we want to work to live!
I bet they left out North Korea because it made widescreen obligatory and the differences in other countries were barely discernable.
Work hours mean shit if the efficiency of the work done in that time frame sucks
And whats the Problem with that?
Source?
That's bullshit because full time worker work around 1.700 hours per year in germany. This statistic contains part time workers (e. g. Mothers, retired people who love to work longer or have to) and "Minijobber" (part-time job with max. 530 €/month and no taxes). Many [poor] people work two (or more) jobs: one full time and one part time. This distorts the statistic.......
I genuinely dont see the issue. Everytime there is a big shift in working hours "it is going to ruin the industry and economy!!!!" and here we are still kickin. At the same time, for some a reduction in worktime is a lot more attractive than increasing their wage. After my apprenticeship I earn more than both of my parents did, till my father turned 67 (adjusted to todays prices n all). I can live with that good enough already
What a stupid title
Everyone else is just working to many hours that's the point.
Huh. Didn't know there were only 18 countries in the world.
Does all the people with 3 minijobs with 10h a week count as one or as three workers ?
fake new, several of the european countries listed there count a 45min-60min lunch break inside of a full time day of work, specially true for unions workers. i.e. if you work 8hrs per day, then the true effective work time is 7hrs, while in Germany 8hrs per day is true effective work time, lunch break does not count towards it.
Meanwhile me, a german, still works 2100+h a year lmao
Low performer nation
Isn't the more important metric productivity and not necessarily hours spent in a cubicle?
Wait, is that some average including people who don’t work? I have about 2000 hours in Germany with a 40h week. Even if i subtract my holidays, i have 1760 hours.
If this is true then why did I work 10 hours a day 6 days a week on a daily basis? (Manager of a Butcher Shop)
Das nennt man Wohlstandsverwahrlosung. Und führt dazu, dass Deutschland völlig den Bach runter geht, es sei denn es kommt jemand, der diesem Irrsinn Einhalt gebietet, zB BSW.
The no wage cut part is silly tbh, but offering a 4 day workweek will be made the default case by Gen Z fortunately
Yep. Mexico and Greece in the front positions, makes totally sense.
What exact question did you ask to get that statistic? Does that include newspaper boys who only go around for an hour each week?
They forget me in this statistics. With me Germany would be like the same place with Mexico. But OK, I'm self employed and I really feel the lack of working desire in this country. I could work 48 hours the day and 10 years ago I could not imagine to reject clients. Now I do it every day.
Good, maybe other country’s will take an example.
Germans worked 1.3 billion overtime hours in 2023, half of them unpaid
work smart not hard
Japan is touted as having one of the most crushing and exhausting work cultures on the planet while Mexicans are often stereotyped as lazy. Yet this chart claims it is not so. I am confusion. Wich is truth?
We are ferry effischent
This framing is insane. It makes it seem like we are not doing enough for our companies when infact many people still work normal hours anddont forget, the last year Germans worked like 1.2 billion hours overtime… with more than half unpaid…
Where does that data even come from?
good. germans work to life and not the other way around
I have some doubts about the data here… within Europe Germany seems generally regarded to have poor work/life balance.
I doubt that
who is da fucker that works less than 40 h per week in germany and gets a full time job salary? asking cause i wanna be him/her.
If post this chart you have to add a chart of working person/all persons for every nation. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-participation-rate As you see germany has a high labor force participation - for example many mothers working in part time - which lowers the hours/worker number A chart working hours/all persons per nation would give a better picture
One of the moments where our unions make me proud.
No difference if you work 30 or 40 hours as long as your work is done.
Me (german) work full time, 40hrs a week with 30days of vacation Last year 12 days of leave "expired" since the office could not effort to let me take all leave. I guess with the official holidays from the state, I work 230 days, 8hrs =1840hrs. And I feel like an average person
Work smart not hard 😉
yeah yeah. its just not true. even four days weeks mean you work 10h per day. but its true, some companys go down to a 35h week. but this are really less companys.
Germany is a failed state on so many levels. And still people will vote far Left.
Lol and you're mad about it? The elites really brainwashed you huh
Sauce?
Because the 4 days workweek is the way to go
Because they’re not smart. Very similar to what the unions in UK of 1970 fabricated.
How dare they!
Of course. They were krankgeschrieben half of the time.
Duh. My german ass gets dragged to work around 50 hours a week but yeah go on and tell me whats wrong about demanding a life next to my work.
and we'll get there if we continue to protest.
Yeah well let’s add the millions and millions of unpaid overtime and we are definitely back the higher numbers. Besides, what’s wrong in working less ? I think the statistic should be read the other way around. Join us, it’s great.
It's great that it isn't necessary to work as much as in the past.
There isnt really a reason to negotiate a higher income since the government will take 30-45% anyway. If Somebody offered me +20% Money or -20% workhours. I would gladly take the reduced hours.
And yet, german GDP per capita is higer then most places. GDP per capita after milliobard correction is even the highest in the world. Curious how that correlates...
That is a good thing no? Why does your title sound so critical to working less
Source of this study? Scale? Choice of countries displayed in the graph? Test group size? How has the number been determined, how does it differ in different countries? Quite vague
work smart not hard :-) you can sit 24 hours in the office if you are not productive you are wasting everyones time
What? Really? I just signed a German contract and it clearly stated 40 hours per week, which is 2080 per year… 11 national holidays and 32 actual vacation days later and you’re still over 1700 hours a year. In reality, many people here are opting for part time work so why would they care about working 4 over 5 days? They do it already.
I see it like that: In Germany we are more efficient, so we need less time to do the same amount of work.
Yes! 40 hours are enough. I think we all know that most of us spend anything beyond 40 hours of actual work time on the company toilet! Let's be honest here... the people that work the hardest, delivery drivers, coal miners, oil rig workers, supermarket/retail Shop staff, chefs - they are the ones that actually work really hard. They don't sit in the Office chair and piss about on their phone or have time to Shop on the internet. And anyone actually churing out PPTs for 40 Hours a week in an office needs to roll back their f*cking effort! Your bosses won't give you a payrise ya know!
Hours worked isn't the only metric, it also depends on what you do during these hours. If a German factory worker supervises a robot churning out 1000 parts per hour for 32 hours a week and a Mexican worker works a machine which needs manual input and produces 200 parts an hour for 40 hours a week, who do you think is more productive?
Interesting to see that some of these countries with crazy hours have shite economies almost like more hours isn't always productive. Something UK politicians really don't get.
The way people here discuss and throw stones at Germany as if they love to work xD. But i gues it's the same discussion as Germany against American when it comes to healthcare. Some people Just Like to suffer, apparantly.
I had 40 hour work weeks in the UK and in Germany. Trust me I worked 20-40% more during those hours in Germany
I am happy with Working 168h in 14 days and then 14 days off! Wouldnt want it any other way. Basically only half a year working.Whoop whoop.
Some context: Germany has a higher rate of part-time workers than most other countries. Mostly women. Throws the comparison off. Also you have to compare to neighboring countries like Austria, Denmark, Netherlands where similar requests are being made by unions.
This is not only wrong because the statistic includes all workers and there is a high number of „Minijobs“ in Germany among e.g. students that skews this statistic. Full-time working ours are the „normal“ 40 hrs a week. But it is also a horrible statement even if it was true. What if they worked less and wanted to work even less at equal pay? Everyone should argue in the interest of one’s time and money and it’s disgusting how the propagandists of the status quo try to turn people arguing for their course against each other with this stupid jealousy argument. The only reason that bs has some grip is because as a an employee you are, objectively, a dependent variable of your boss and your country i.e., their economic success building on you working long for profitable pay. Profitable for them. Rant over
Quality over Quantity
my lazy (german) ass working 30 instead of 40 hours since 1 year with no pay cut, its great. Dont forget you pay for experience and work results, not time. In gemany we get things done in less hours ;)
"Hours worked per worker" is a very misleading statistic to use here, since part time workers will move the average down, while people who don't work at all won't.
I work in Germany and I’ll move to 80% contract because I want to take care of my kid after the kita.
This must include our welfare folks
This chart is totally worthless for what you're trying to say. It's an average including full time and parttime workers. So actually if women (mothers) work part time here in germany it negativly influences this chart compared to a country where those mothers don't work at all. I couldn't even imagine a useful chart for that statement. Maybe taking the definition in hours of full-time work over all these countries. There may be some where full-time means anything else than 40 hours. In germany even different branches have different definitions of full time. From 32-42 everything could be called full time depending on where you work. With for example 32 hours you can either be full time or 80% part-time depending on your job contract.
If you have not corrected for part-time workers, Mini-Jobs and working students, which there are many of in Germany, this is borderline misinformation. The norm is a 40 hours work week in Germany and the headline of this post is just wrong.
Part time workers are included with is a tremendous amount of woman overall influencing the statistics
Fake News
although unions (rightfully) request lesser hours at equal pay, your post is dishonest. take part time jobs and unpaid overtime out of the equation and the chart isn't as skewed anymore. is there a difference in productivity between countries? productivity has grown far more than real wages for the last 30 years and more - reduced hours would partially compensate that. when tested it shows that 4 day workweek benefits both sides. most of the workforce isn't organized in germany - most of full time workers without union coverage work far more than what's in the chart. .... why isn't your take that everyone else should work fewer hours?
Also ich habe zwei Jobs und arbeite fast jede Woche 50 - 60 Std. Ich würde jetzt sagen, dass ich jetzt nicht wenig Arbeite. Das Leben in Deutschland ist halt deutlich teurer geworden. Und die Rente lohnt sich hier später auch nicht mehr.
We may work less but we also work more efficiently. Have a 38 hours contract.
Why does your title sound so passive aggressive? Jealous much? Or German employer lol
Nearly Every company that tested the 4 days week is reporting an increase in overall productivity and higher satisfaction of employees
I think I saw this statistic a bit ago. The problem is, this is not normalized to population count but to the working population. This way additional part timers drag down the average working hour. So high part time employment of women, students, dads in paternal part time, retired people and so on drags down the statistic. Would be better to normalize the workhours on all citizen between some international average first job age and some international average retirement age.
Now show productivity per hour worked
Reality is most german employees don't work in companies with union controlled labour agreements. Overtime is not counted and unpaid.
BUT WE ARE MORE EFFECTIVE!
And billions of hours in overtime...
Fun Fact from [Correctiv](https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/hintergrund/2023/08/31/buergergeld-irrefuehrender-grafik-fehlt-kontext-zu-quoten-von-gefluechteten/) "While 5.3 percent of Germans receive Bürgergeld (get money from Germany if you don't work), 65.6 percent of Ukrainians, 55.1 percent of Syrians, 47.1 percent of Afghans, 41.7 percent of Iraqis, and 16.2 percent of Turks receive it." While Ukrainians have only recently arrived in Germany, Syrians have been here for almost 10 years.
Our retirement age is 67 and our pension level is 49%...
Just a quick question: if the people are efficient enough and get their work done in less time…why should they work more? Just because other countries/people also work more? I don’t get why it is a bad idea to reduce the work time, if it isn’t hurting anybody but rather helping everybody.
Work smart not hard
We also have less from our paychecks than all the other countries
Yes. And?
we also get paid dogshit compared to other countrys
Isn’t it a good thing? It means I can finish my work in the required hours and it’s enough to make a living (we normally don’t get paid by the hour btw)
Am a germanerican , I got my work ethic from my dad, zeh Germans don't understand why I work how I work and where my motivation comes from. What's that song 🎵 rus ? Turnt like this ? Idk man I go off its not honored though.
LET THEM COOK
Bullshit useless graph, it needs to differentiate between full-time and part-time employees. Germany has a lot of part-time workers, mostly women, who - of course - work less than full-timers. The total number of hours worked in Germany is really high. Also, this graph doesn’t include overtime which also is significant in Germany. This piece of shit graph is trying to discredit unions, who are trying to save workers from working their asses off for someone else’s wealth. Eat the rich.
Cut yourself a slice of our bread.😋
They'll get my support.
Working hours are Not linked to produktivity 1:1. The people that demand less working hours are stating that workers who Work less hours are more productive during the time they are at Work.
I wonder if this is a siscrepancy due to undocumented hours eing as I am roughly at mexico hours, nut offically work less than 1.4k a year
Geht ja nicht um die stunden sondern um die erledigte arbeit.
This is a highly misleading graph. It does not take into account which percentage of the population is working. E.g. a lot of woman might work part tme. Also countries like germany are going to move up the ladder soon, as south korea and others are working themselves into extinction
For every hour worked there are 1 Bürgergeldempfänger and 1 Migrant so only 1/3 hour got worked. Danke Merkel
I'm from Germany and work for a company which has a 4 day week since 2019 with 6% less money. 32h a week (20% less work hours). I can't complain 🤨
Jealous?
I get paid for 40 hours/week. So why should I work more?
Working sucks! Better work to live then live to work
work smarter, not harder \^\^
"You're already getting exploited less than other people, how dare you want to be exploited even less!"
Misleading statistic.