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The schedule here never ceases to crack me up
Among the Americans I know here, there’s a lot of joking about the short hours Germans work. This actually started after weeks of being dumbstruck by locked doors of shops and municipal buildings during the first month of living in Munich. Coming from a large American city, it’s difficult for me to understand that stores close at all, let alone at 8pm promptly, everywhere in the whole damn city.
Not a single store in the entire city is open on Sundays. You can’t even buy groceries or a sandwich. Exception: the concourse for the central train station does have to-go food available, as travellers are coming through at all hours and days of the week
Today I needed to go down to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat, the hip joint where I acquired my visa, as I now need a working permit that says I’m allowed to have a part-time job. Today happens to be Marti Gras, which means there’s a federally mandated half-day of work. Since this particular office somehow normally closes at noon, I joked with my friends this morning that today it would probably only be open till 10:30am.
It was.
I get there at 10:45am and there’s a huge sign placed on the roped-off stairs explaining that the office closed early. There was even a security detail on the stairs to keep people from trying the doors.
It’s unbelievable. A couple weeks back, an American friend was looking up internships online and found a very attractive position, but the hours were stated as “full work week.” Unquantified, that sounded a little foreboding. But really it just meant the standard 35 hours per week, she later found out.
Let’s have some citation fun.
Could Longer Work Hours Revive the German Economy?
“We work less in Germany but have a higher level of productivity,” said Dierk Hirschel, an economist at the German Federation of Trade Unions. “We can produce more per hour because people are relaxed since they don’t have to work as much as in other countries.”
He would like to see a 35 hour week become the norm.
In case it’s not obvious, the economist is proposing an increase to 35-hour work weeks. To be fair, that article is dated 2001. Let’s look at one from 2005.
Germany moves toward longer work week
Private German companies are moving towards longer working hours and greater flexibility, says the German Chamber of Industry and Trade (DIHK). The DIHK hopes that the trend could lead to lower labour costs.
“The 40-hour work week is a reality in Germany. To think differently is to ignore reality,” said Martin Wansleben, head of the DIHK.
The agency polled 20,000 companies across Germany and found that one in three already operated a 40-hour working week.
Eastern Germany seems to have taken the lead: two-thirds of companies there operate a working week of 40 hours or more. However, in western Germany, only 30% work longer than 35 hours per week.
What a grand country, no?
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You’re currently reading “The schedule here never ceases to crack me up,” an entry on Im Voraus
- Published:
- Feb 05 2008 / 12:02
- Category:
- musings
- Tags:
- cultural-differences
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