DistantNews
Support us
🇪🇸 Spain /Economy & Trade

German industry calls for a return to the 40-hour workweek

From La Vanguardia · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Major German industrial companies are backing a return to a 40-hour workweek, four decades after IG Metall helped establish the 35-hour standard in key sectors.
  • Employers cite industrial labor costs of 49.50 euros per hour, 47% above the European Union average, as a threat to competitiveness.
  • IG Metall rejects the proposal, warning that longer hours could destroy jobs rather than create them.

Germany’s industrial employers want workers to return to a 40-hour week without a pay cut, reopening a labor dispute that appeared settled four decades ago. The campaign follows repeated calls from Chancellor Friedrich Merz for Germans to work more, and executives at companies including Mercedes-Benz and toolmaker Stihl have joined the argument.

Employers point to labor costs as a central weakness. Industrial labor in Germany costs 49.50 euros an hour, according to the figures cited in the debate, compared with an EU average of 33.70 euros. The German figure is three times Hungary’s 15.60 euros per hour. Martin Brudermüller, chairman of Mercedes-Benz’s supervisory board, told Handelsblatt that labor had become too expensive by international standards and said Germany had lost its productivity advantage over important competitors.

Labor has become too expensive here by international standards. We should seriously consider returning to a 40-hour workweek.

· Martin BrudermüllerThe Mercedes-Benz supervisory board chairman argued for longer working hours in comments to Handelsblatt.

The 35-hour week covers about one-fifth of Germany’s workforce, including employees in the automotive, engineering and steel industries. The average German workweek is 37.8 hours, although the figure is affected by the country’s large part-time workforce. Industrial production has fallen by about 15% since 2018, while employment has declined by slightly more than 5%, according to data compiled by the Financial Times.

IG Metall says the existing system is more flexible than its critics suggest because working-time accounts already allow adjustments. The union also argues that extending hours would distribute available work among fewer people and destroy jobs. Merz said in January that Germany could not preserve prosperity with a four-day week and an “exaggerated work-life balance.” The adjustment plan announced by Volkswagen has added urgency to the dispute, while consultancy Oliver Wyman says Germany’s auto industry has some of the world’s highest labor costs.

You cannot maintain prosperity with a four-day workweek and an exaggerated work-life balance.

· Friedrich MerzThe German chancellor used the phrase in January while arguing that people should work more.
About this summary

Originally published by La Vanguardia in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog