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?
dude thats normal. come on i never saw something like a computer store open after 8-9 pm in philly. U got 7/11 but hey probs somewhere in munich u can finde something like that asswell.
That would be the case in inner cities but around here you will regularly find stores open until 10-11 PM.
Dude, please. I can go to Wal-Mart at 3am and buy a mouse for my computer if I want. And I’ve actually done that.
And who doesn’t want to do that?
Langsam, Wozek.
What…really? Dude I thought Phily is closed at night. We were out severell times and the City really seemed to sleep at night. Next time I gonna buy a mouse at 3am. And if that shitty store is closed…Yeah you know what I am gonna do with you
But I have to assist your statement in a nother way. What I recognized in the US was, employee moral was much upper then it is in Germany. Folks here dont really want to work and dont have to cause of the social programms that give you money when you dont have a job. People in America dont want to work but have to. And they try to work ones´s ass off cause they afraid to loose their jobs. Thats kind of different here I guess.
But it belongs to the areas. In Berlin the moral is f***** poor but in Stuttgart or Munich it is usually better. In those Cities their are some different problems, too. Bayern and Baden Würtenberg (the States of the Cities) are really rich. So the people there or the owner of the shops dont really have to open up so long. We dont consume like you do. People here dont buy Ice at 7/11. They freeze it themselves. And you cant go and buy a super big 7/11 drink. Big here is medium over there.
And there is a 3rd reason. I remember the days when shops used to close at 6pm what was really crazy. After they extended the hours of opening, they dont enlist employees, they just extended their working time. So the Problem was that when you went to a shop you couldnt really fine a employee. It is sometimes still that way. You go for example to Karstadt which is something like Wallmart I guess. There you can look kind of hours to get help from somebody. You may ask now why they dont enlist some employees. The Thing is that they had and have to pay money for health care and pension for each of them. So when you think like that: 6 eployees working over the day for 12 Hours. Each of them for 6 hours. They would earn 30 Euro per day. But the shop has to pay for each of them about 130 Bucks per month.
Then think that only 3 Wokers would work 12 hours. Like 4+4+4 . And thats another reason. So when you open up longer it would be much worser.
Last but not …
! I really want to play C&C. You re afraid right?
Cihan, I completely agree. I think you’re right that in America the service culture mentality is much more pervasive than in Germany, but that’s precisely what I like about Germany: people don’t behave like the property of corporations. Much moreso, the corporations are driven to behave like the propoerty of people (it’s not nearly the perfect system, but it’s worlds better than the sad state of affairs in the US).
The Karstadt explanation made me laugh. What Wal-Mart does is actually higher EXTRA employees, then let them all only work 39 hours a week. That means they qualify as “part-time” and don’t get benefits. If they had fewer employees, more would be working past the 40-hour mark, meaning Wal-Mart would have to pay out more. Sucks, huh?
As for Philly being dead at night, you’re definitely right. Wal-Mart is a very suburban thing, so you won’t find that in the big cities, generally. You’d have to come with me to Central Pennsylvania or something to see that kind of stuff. You can buy a mouse at 3am, but you can’t buy beer at a grocery store! Pennsylvania, I salute you.
nice