Around Germany and Greece there were other countries. They went by names like frugal four and PIIGS. They forced “austerity” and stricter working hours onto indebted countries to save their own banks.
The colours on this map show well that northern “productivity” is not about working hours, but about other topics that did not get addressed. Among these topics are also tax heavens (think the Netherlands) and money laundering (think Austria’s special relationship with Russia).
So it was nothing more than poor political leadership without vision.
There is a massive issue with that data. Namely that it only looks at people, who actually have a job. Generally speaking employers prefer full time workers over part time. Obviously somebody working part time is still more productive, then an unemployed person. In France 52.8% of women over 15 work, in Italy it is 41.3%. Then you get things like unemployment, which tends to be much much higher in the south.
That is why Spain is working on reducing the work week. It lower the high unemployment rate.
I agree for the rest, but wait to see how automotive failing to reform itself will lead to much much higher unemployment in the South of Germany.
I have nothing against Germans or automotive. I have a lot against local feudals and communities that are fine with them as long as they can call themselves a working class. If your slave owner is richer than someone else’s this doesn’t really make you richer, you are still as dependent as a slave.
The automotive industry is why Germany has such a bad time economicly speaking. At least in the last five years or so. Car sales in the Europe(EU, UK &EFTA) were 15,805,752 in 2019 and only 12,963,614 in 2024. Obviously car manufacturers prefer cheaper factories in eastern Europe over the more expensive German ones, hence you see them shrinking staff. For the suppliers it is even worse, as a lot of them are specialized in combustion engines. With BEVs doing what they do, that means mass layoffs. That is why German automotive industry only employees 761,000 workers today. In 2018 it was 834,000.
At the same time Germany is able to do much more then just automotive and those sectors are able to grow. Hence you see stagnation.
OP doesn’t seem to understand how these data are compiled.
In most tourism-related jobs (e.g. restaurants), people don’t count their hours.
This completely distorts the data for countries like France.
In Scandinavian countries and Germany, is common for 1 parent to work 50%. They also earn 50% (actually even less). This also distorts the data for these countries.
Finally, many of these states are about contractual hours. Not actual. If you work overtime, this is not accounted for. If you don’t declare employees, is the same. And if you don’t work, while being at work, i it’s still counted as work.
Final word about the critics of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. Most of these people criticized the fact that they take long breaks and “waste time” while at work (=do chitchat).
They usually don’t realize, that while Germans commonly leave work around 5pm, people in other countries stay until 6, 7 or even 8pm.
For the chitchat part, it’s mainly that they don’t value it.
Didn’t get too offended by idiots ;-)
So working 50% distorts the data by reporting 50% of the hours?
I’m confused by your statements, but am looking at moving to Germany. Do you mean if my wife works full-time and I work full-time we’d end up being paid 50% each?
Am Greek. Working 44 hours on average (40 during winter, 48 during the summer).
Many in the tourism industry, which brings in 13% of Greece’s GDP, work for over 50 hours on average for 6 months, then they work mostly uninsured labor jobs in the winter, so that map only gives you half the truth.
Yeah, that ‘hours of work in main’ job really does something here.
I mean the guy working three part time jobs would clock in maybe 20ish hours on the main job but maybe 60 overall.
Working a lot is nothing to be proud of.
cries in American
Greek bail out was inherently a bail out of bond holders… Many of which were German 🤡
That, and the eurozone in general.
Correct majority of bond holders were French and German.
Also having some… spicy thoughts about french neoliberal politicians constantly saying German workers are so much better than us lazy assholes.
Yeah I have spicy thoughts for them too, would be great if they tried doing a real job to see how it feels
My guess is cause they are rich people from Paris and based on my experience with paris, that number is actually a cumulative number of hours for everyone who lives in Paris
English and Russians don’t even have jobs! /s
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Wolfgang Schäuble
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Portuguese work way more than that
Except the public sector where 25% of the time is coffee breaks.
Hey, I live in the country that works the least… nice!
Got to have goals!
It would interesting to see this vs the average in the US.
“Tax haven”, though I like OP’s version too
Don’t trust me, see The Independent then. Jokes aside, thanks for the correction, I’ve always been unsure which one it is.
Greek clocks don’t work most of the time either.
They go to work for one half-hour, two half-hour. Then do something cool for lunch like a cigarette, 2-3 bottles of a red wine and a bowl of heavy cream.
