LUDOVIC MARIN ; POOL/EPA
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz thinks his fellow citizens need to work harder. But will you be analyzing the situation well?
Germany is leaving the.
Friedrich Merzthe German chancellor, he recently said that wants “Germans to work more and more efficiently”.
There are those who theorize that, in that country, the ideal of conciliation between professional and private life was taken too far. Now they argue that for your economy to work again, you need to work more.
This is what Friedrich Merz thinks – whose (controversial) considerations triggered a intense debate on “laziness”.
Did the Germans become complacent? Can working more hours help overcome poor growth? “The short answer is no.” That’s what says Malte JauchManagement Specialist at Essex University (United Kingdom), in an article no.
According to the teacher, “the true Problem does not reside in work ethics“.
Quantity or quality?
Compared to other industrialized countries, it is true that Germans work relatively a few hours.
On average, a German worker spends 1343 hours a year in paid activity, much less than in the United States (1799 hours), the United Kingdom (1524) or Greece (1897, the highest EU).
Merz used these numbers to present a seemingly simple argument: the wealth of a country is reflected in the amount of goods and services it produces. But the production of goods and services requires work. The more people work, the more they can produce. Therefore, Working more increases prosperity.
In opposition to this, there may be an inverse relationship between the number of hours of work and wealth. The richest countries in the world have average working times much lower than the poorest countries in the world.
Mexicans work 2,207 hours a year, for example, but their average annual yield is less than one third of the Germans.
However, “this is not enough to refute Merz’s argument,” says Jauch.
Rich countries can generally afford to work less because they can count on advanced technology and solid institutions to generate wealth. An example of this is Germany’s success in exporting high -tech manufactured products.
Three more Merz errors
More or Merz erro goes beyond correlations between working hours and wealth.
The question pointed out by the critics is that the German chancellor does not seem to have considered the unfair obstacles – such as gender social norms and lack of access to child care – which, for example, women face when they are looking for full -time jobs.
There are many reasons why women devote less time to paid work than men, but none of them have to do with laziness.
Secondly, increasing working hours can have unintentional negative consequences, because much of the country’s wealth results from unpaid work.
Assistance work, children’s education, domestic work and voluntary work are indispensable for a flourishing society. When politicians seek to extend paid work, this often happens at the expense of valuable contributions that are made outside of formal work markets.
A third reason for skepticism has to do with the phenomenon of decreasing income-the common sense that workers tend to become less productive as the workday increases.
Spend another hour at the office, hospital or factory does not translate into additional production if the worker is already exhausted.
The solution that Merz does not want
So, does that mean that there is no reason for Merz to worry about how much Germans work? “No,” warns Jauch.
A major concern is demographic change. In the coming decades, the number of people who will reform in Germany will be much higher to the number of people who will enter the job market.
Other industrialized countries experience similar trends, but population aging is particularly extreme in Germany.
This means that, In general, less work will be performed.
In response, a government can try increase birth rates and allow entry of foreign young people in the country.
But stimulating birth rates is notoriously difficult and very expensive – not only in Germany, but in many countries that are trying to achieve this goal.
As for the other option, Jauch sets the example of Spain – which is among the few industrialized countries that have committed leverage migration to streamline your economy.
There are some indications that this strategy is being successful, with the Spanish economy to recently achieve a high growth rate of 2.7% compared to -0.3% in Germany.
According to the president of the German Institute of Economic Research, Marcel Fratzschera Germany should do something similar. He estimated that 400,000 migrants would be needed a year for the next four years to stabilize Germany’s unstable economy.
It is a fact that Germany faces a lack of work problem. But here, Merz may eventually make the situation worse – Since one of your main political objectives is to contain migration.
