Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 111 posts

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#21

Post by Czarcasm »

appplemac wrote: post #4

Instead of a 4-day workweek how about setting reasonable hiring standards so that hundreds of thousands of people out of work, especially non-native German speakers, have a chance of getting past the job application screen. Most jobs, even in tech, in DE currently require good knowledge of German, and "good" is being interpreted as near-native.

Flawless communication between team members is important when developing complex products. If my team was primarily comprised of people who only fluently speak German, and we are located in Germany, is it not reasonable for me to set a requirement that new candidates must speak fluent German?

Why are you entitled to have people speak your language, when you are the immigrant?

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#22

Post by Barrin92 »

appplemac wrote: post #4

Instead of a 4-day workweek how about setting reasonable hiring standards so that hundreds of thousands of people out of work, especially non-native German speakers, have a chance of getting past the job application screen. Most jobs, even in tech, in DE currently require good knowledge of German, and "good" is being interpreted as near-native.

As a native speaker my experience isn't that you require near native skills, I've worked with plenty of expats/immigrants who speak 'just' good German, but I'd rather increase language learning opportunities if necessary mandatory rather than lower standards.

This is still a country, not a back office for multinationals, people who talk to a German business should be able to have a conversation in German. This can be expected from immigrants. I've lived abroad myself and made sure I was proficient enough to be able to integrate. It's culturally vital as well.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#23

Post by bastardoperator »

The question I think needs answering is why we wouldn't do it. Obviously most people would love to have an extra 52 days a year to themselves to spend with family, do hobbies, handle personal business. Outside of greed or operational commitments, why aren't we doing this?

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#24

Post by [deleted] »

mushufasa wrote: post #20

I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American, was a bit culture shocked by how little time people worked, and how so many people I met bragged about collecting paid time off for reasons they admitted to making up, which the government enforced all employers must allow. As an employer, I'd be afraid of hiring in countries like Germany for an international workforce if that meant I have to have a patchwork of speci…

[deleted]

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#25

Post by ysofunny »

bastardoperator wrote: post #23

The question I think needs answering is why we wouldn't do it. Obviously most people would love to have an extra 52 days a year to themselves to spend with family, do hobbies, handle personal business. Outside of greed or operational commitments, why aren't we doing this?

> why aren't we doing this?

because cultural inertia (see also why USA still uses imperial units instead of metric)

but agree that we should have more poeple working less instead of a few people working a lot (or making all the money)

6 hour workdays would also be cool, instead of 3 shifts to cover a 24 hour period companies would be forced to have 4 shifts a day (for 24/7 operations)

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#26

Post by lm28469 »

psunavy03 wrote: post #7
askonomm wrote: post #2

I once brought up the idea of a 4-day work week to a PM I worked with, and her immediate reaction was very defensive, as she could not understand why would anyone want to work less, and who then would get all the work done. It made me realize that not all people actually want more freedom, some are most likely stockholm syndrom-ed to their job, and these are the people the rest of us are up against trying make positi…

People confusing outputs with outcomes. Being busy is not the same thing as being productive. You can be busy as hell working on things that are not valuable.

Productivity per employee definitely increased, and profit of companies definitely increased, the only thing that didn't follow both of these trends is the average wage

If you want to prove all the excess productivity of the last 50 years is useless busywork you have to bring some proofs. The money is moving from pockets to pockets so surely some value is created, it just happens that all these pockets are at the top, and not much trickles down

https://economicsfromthetopdown.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/...

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#27

Post by ysofunny »

appplemac wrote: post #4

Instead of a 4-day workweek how about setting reasonable hiring standards so that hundreds of thousands of people out of work, especially non-native German speakers, have a chance of getting past the job application screen. Most jobs, even in tech, in DE currently require good knowledge of German, and "good" is being interpreted as near-native.

because Americans have the unfortunate habit of going to other countries and not bothering to learn the local languages

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#28

Post by JAlexoid »

mushufasa wrote: post #20

I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American, was a bit culture shocked by how little time people worked, and how so many people I met bragged about collecting paid time off for reasons they admitted to making up, which the government enforced all employers must allow. As an employer, I'd be afraid of hiring in countries like Germany for an international workforce if that meant I have to have a patchwork of speci…

Take note, that in some countries the employer is reimbursed for prolonged employee absence due to illness or similar. Germans are also often paid less, which in many cases is a result of employer taking into account PTO and other absences.

On the other hand working as an independent consultant (contractor, B2B model in EU) - you may get paid similar or even more than what you'd make in the US.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#29

Post by yoyoinbog »

mushufasa wrote: post #20

I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American, was a bit culture shocked by how little time people worked, and how so many people I met bragged about collecting paid time off for reasons they admitted to making up, which the government enforced all employers must allow. As an employer, I'd be afraid of hiring in countries like Germany for an international workforce if that meant I have to have a patchwork of speci…

Berlin is not really Germany.

Working in Germany is mostly more exhausting than many jobs in the US.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#30

Post by Workaccount2 »

Czarcasm wrote: post #21
appplemac wrote: post #4

Instead of a 4-day workweek how about setting reasonable hiring standards so that hundreds of thousands of people out of work, especially non-native German speakers, have a chance of getting past the job application screen. Most jobs, even in tech, in DE currently require good knowledge of German, and "good" is being interpreted as near-native.

Flawless communication between team members is important when developing complex products. If my team was primarily comprised of people who only fluently speak German, and we are located in Germany, is it not reasonable for me to set a requirement that new candidates must speak fluent German? Why are you entitled to have people speak your language, when you are the immigrant?

They can speak German, the just can't speak it to a level that would fool a life-long speaker.

I work with plenty of engineers who speak English as a second (or even third) language. It's not really an issue.

Post reply on HN