Germansplaining: Work, holidays and the myth of Teutonic efficiency

Then there are ideological public holidays such as Labour Day or World Women’s Day. The latter was only recently implemented by Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern despite economists warning that, GDP-wise, neither state could afford the extra holiday. But the need to regain lost ground on Bavaria was stronger than reason.

We also have a patriotic public holiday: German Unity Day on October 3. If, however, this date – or Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, May 1 etc – happens to fall on a Sunday, well, that’s just tough luck. Even in Bavaria.

There have been calls to copy the clever UK model of making sure a holiday really is one by extending it to Monday. But those who want to follow the British example may not realise that UK employers actually don’t have to give paid leave. Quite shocking, from the German perspective. Not get paid for a Feiertag? Unthinkable!

I sometimes wonder whether the stereotype of hard-working Germans isn’t slightly outdated. It’s easy to see where it came from: back in Prussia, industriousness basically served as a state religion. Thanks to the political fragmentation of the surrounding lands, at a time when there were just two universities in England, we already had more than 20 in the various German kingdoms and principalities.

Devout and meritocratic views helped talented children from poorer families to gain entrance. And as education pushed the economy, the Catholic provinces followed suit. I don’t think paid holidays were such a thing in this era.

One of the most quoted, best-known and – trigger warning – longest German poems is Friedrich Schiller’s Die Glocke (Song of the Bell). You know him as the author of Ode to Joy, the lyrics of what would become the European anthem, but he also wrote: 

Fresh, O workmen, be at hand!

From the heated brow

Sweat must freely flow.

Somehow I find it hard to imagine similar rhymes from Byron, Shelley or Keats (but if they exist I’m sure TNE readers will let me know). I find it even harder to believe that a modern Schiller would write the same lines again.

I’m not saying Germans have become lazy. It’s just that the cliche doesn’t hold up under scrutiny: in comparison with the rest of Europe, we certainly aren’t the most hard-working nation. Quite the opposite: Germans, on average, have six weeks of holidays plus the 10 Feiertage. No other country in Europe offers more paid time off. And with 46% of women working part-time (compared with 40% in the UK), we rank third behind Austria and the Dutch. Asked what weekly working time they wish for, Germans now answer just 32.8 hours, the lowest figure since this question was first asked in 1985.

Germanophiles may counter that being the last to leave the office is so 1990 (true), that it’s about efficiency and productivity, which are boosted by a positive work-life balance (also true). But the hard facts are undeniable, too: the German economy is in recession and we would be lucky to have a net zero GDP by the end of the year.

Normally, this would be accompanied by growing unemployment rates. Instead, there is a massive and increasing shortage of general labour, not just skilled workers – even though we didn’t leave the EU.

In the next 15 years, German baby boomers will reach retirement age (many have already taken early retirement, which – incomprehensibly to me – is still incentivised). That’s about a third of the current workforce; millions of people who because of sheer numbers cannot be replaced by school leavers, university graduates and immigrants.

What would help is to get more people to work full time. That’s not a trending topic. A recent study found an increasing demand to work part time, and when asked for the reasons the main answers weren’t “children”, “elderly parents” or “pro bono work”. The majority just said: “don’t want to work full time”.

Maybe someone should tell them that full time, in Germany, isn’t full time anyway.