Bleak demographics and short average work weeks could come to haunt Europe’s largest economy

https://archive.is/CUo0k

Merz’s coalition must persuade younger generations to surrender more of their free time to support Europe’s largest economy

The coalition between Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats have, in their treaty which defines the political agenda until the next election, committed to incentives to persuade Germans to increase their working hours, and to delay retirement.

  • Avid AmoebaEnglish
    46·
    1 year ago

    It’s interesting that an article about productivity of labour doesn’t mention productivity. Her Merz should perhaps persuade the owner class and himself to invest in labour productivity increases such as training, equipment, digitalization and automation. Working more hours is a marginal improvement if it even produces higher output at all.

    • Ooops@feddit.orgEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      They don’t need to invest into productivity, which btw is already through the roof.

      They can just happily ignore facts because nothing (but the profits of the top 0,x %) is linked to actual productivity anymore. Instead it’s linked to wages that can be kept low.

      (PS: And all actual context aside, modern day Germans are actually working more than ever, too. So it’s not even malicious misinterpreting of reality but just plain lying.)

    • Kornblumenratte@feddit.orgEnglish
      51·
      1 year ago

      I’d wager extending work hours decreases productivity. There are lots of reasons why this will happen, let alone the demotivating loss of leisure time.