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Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

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Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#61

Post by FirmwareBurner »

whstl wrote: post #53
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American That's a pretty bad way to get an impression of a whole country. That's like those American tourists visiting only the instagramable parts of Paris and Rome and then say they "saw Europe" lol. Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and rest…

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority C'mon, let's not exaggerate, it is 71% of ethnic Germans according to Wikipedia.

And if you go for a walk in the city you mostly hear English.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#62

Post by pitkali »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #32
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…

>I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American That's a pretty bad way to get an impression of a whole country. That's like those American tourists visiting only the instagramable parts of Paris and Rome and then say they "saw Europe" lol. Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and rest…

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and restaurants can take their orders in German.

This is a pretty tired trope. As an immigrant living in Berlin since 2020, first in Prenzlauer Berg and now in Schöneweide, I still haven't found those enclaves that even speak English, let alone don't speak German. I'm sure they exist, but generalising from them to the whole 4 million+ city seems as misguided as generalising from your Berlin experience to the rest of the country.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#63

Post by mrks_hy »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #51
mrks_hy wrote: post #37

Can someone change the misleading title to part of the subtitle? It is "Less work, same money, more happiness and productivity. As of February 1, 45 companies in Germany are testing a 4-day workweek.", which is much more meaningful. Title makes it sound like there is anything like a concerted effort, whereas these are just 45 random companies. No details on size of those companies, no data on number of employees or f…

"testing a 4-day workweek" So, it is a 4-day workweek? So how is title misleading? HN has a character limit, so sometimes titles get changed to fit.

The title is misleading because it says Germany is exploring - suggesting there is anything like a cultural shift/push on a society-wide scale to explore. That unfortunately is not the case.

German work culture as a whole is very much still "butts in seats", working for the predefined number of hours per week with a fixed quota each day, and the Stempeluhr [1] is very much alive even in white collar jobs.

1: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stempeluhr

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#64

Post by mgraupner »

shasts wrote: post #18
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.

Can confirm this. My wife has a master's degree in engineering from a TU9(top 9 universities in Germany).And a B2 language certificate. She has not found a job so far. Been more than a year and half since she started actively applying. At times she ticks all the requirements in the job description, and still no luck. She is planning to go to a bakery starting next week. The guy at the bakery was so surprised to see s…

So she's got a degree in engineering from here in Germany, knows the language pretty well, but can't land a job here? I don't know where you are in Germany, but that sounds pretty much unbelievable. I live in Bavaria in a mid-sized town with 140.000 residents. I know companies here where almost half the staff is Indian/other nationality and it does not matter at all how good your German is (I know multiple Indians working there). I personally have a friend who is from Iran, she is going to be a chemistry professor soon here in Germany, so there ARE definitely opportunities for people who are not born here.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#65

Post by JAlexoid »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #32
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…

>I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American That's a pretty bad way to get an impression of a whole country. That's like those American tourists visiting only the instagramable parts of Paris and Rome and then say they "saw Europe" lol. Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and rest…

Berlin is cosmopolitan, not "Expat enclave".

Berlin attracts people from all over Europe and the common language is English.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#66

Post by JAlexoid »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #61
whstl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority C'mon, let's not exaggerate, it is 71% of ethnic Germans according to Wikipedia.

And if you go for a walk in the city you mostly hear English.

I mostly hear German, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#67

Post by FlyingSnake »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #32
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…

>I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American That's a pretty bad way to get an impression of a whole country. That's like those American tourists visiting only the instagramable parts of Paris and Rome and then say they "saw Europe" lol. Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and rest…

Why smaller cities? OP would be shocked to see other parts of Berlin like Steglitz, Moabit or Weißensee, where this isn’t a norm.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#68

Post by usrusr »

jl2718 wrote: post #13

Q: How do they define a 'labor shortage'? A: Companies hiring less. Hmmm... real earnings are down 4-6% every year, so... no. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Labour/Earnings/Real-Earni...

Apparently it's already a labor shortage when HR departments can keep themselves busy running openings for mr and mrs perfect while rejecting everybody who is less than a 99.9% match.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#69

Post by mrks_hy »

harryf wrote: post #45
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…

One issue is the way taxes work in Germany that disincentives entering the middle rungs of a career ladder. Like if you’re a software engineer and want to become an engineering manager, you might end up earning less after tax as a manager than you did as an engineer as your salary increase puts you in a new tax bracket. Otherwise Germanys economy is optimized to support medium to large German companies with export bu…

> you might end up earning less after tax as a manager than you did as an engineer as your salary increase puts you in a new tax bracket.

This is impossible, even with the very high German taxes :-)

You will keep less of each (EDIT: additional) Euro you earn, but the tax progression is not that broken that getting paid more results in less money for you. There are diminishing returns on hours worked, if that is what you meant, but otherwise it's untrue.

Re: Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortage

#70

Post by whstl »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #61
whstl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority C'mon, let's not exaggerate, it is 71% of ethnic Germans according to Wikipedia.

And if you go for a walk in the city you mostly hear English.

Only in tourist areas, but that's tourists. During Covid it was very different.
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