Germany: debate over working time reform gains momentum

The coalition agreement signed by Germany's conservative CDU/CSU and social democratic SPD parties provides for the abolition of the eight-hour working day in favour of a maximum weekly working time. In recent days, statements by Chancellor Friedrich Merz and several studies highlighting labour and working time issues in Germany have reignited the debate in favour of rapid reform.

Although the merits of introducing a four-day working week have been widely discussed in Germany, the new German government is moving in the opposite direction. “We must work harder and, above all, more efficiently in this country,” warned Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of the centre-right CDU, last week. “We will not be able to maintain prosperity with a four-day week and work-life balance,” he warned in his first policy statement to the Bundestag. The publication of an assessment by the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne,…

Thomas Schnee

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