Once upon a time, Germans were world champions in cars, soccer and music.
As the summer season kicks in, however, a new report suggests Germans’ core competences now lie in work-avoidance and holidays.
Even the famed tradition of German efficiency appears to have adapted, with a visible research boom into how best to optimise rest and relaxation (R&R).
Despite all this, many here were furious when new chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested his fellow citizens needed to work more.
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“We won’t be able to hold our standard of living with the four-day week and work-life balance,” said Merz to a recent audience of nodding German managers.
They had all read a new report showing Germans work on average 33.2 hours weekly, two hours less than the EU weekly average.
Another OECD report of annual hours worked put Germans, on 1,340 hours, at the bottom of the European pile: compared to 1,659 hours in Ireland, 1,810 hours in the US and 1,882 hours in Greece.
Some say the average statistics are skewed by how 29 per cent of Germans are employed part-time, well above the EU average of 17 per cent.
Either way, employers are alarmed given productivity is sliding even faster than the wider economy. Even with 31 days of statutory leave and seven national holidays, the average German worker takes 19 additional days’ sick leave annually – more than half their statutory maximum of six weeks’ paid sick leave.
Another survey calculated the average number of sick days at 15, but even that marks a two thirds rise on a decade ago.
The OECD work report prompted a fortnight of “are we too lazy?” headlines and hand-wringing. Then most Germans headed off on their holidays regardless, many clutching a copy of Der Spiegel magazine with the cover story: “The Holiday Formula: how researchers sound out the secrets of rest and relaxation”.
Many experts in the booming area of R&R research suggest one reason so many people feel permanently exhausted is because our holiday habits have failed to keep up with massive changes to our working lives, where laptops and smartphones have increased efficiency and expectations.
“The intensification of work doesn’t just make us more in need of rest and recovery, it also inhibits our actual ability to recover,” argues Prof Gerhard Blasche, a clinical psychologist at the University of Vienna, pioneer in rest and author of Take a Break.
He argues that keeping about 10 per cent of the working day for breaks prevents exhaustion, something that is particularly necessary in the rush to complete tasks ahead of a holiday.
Once on leave, however, he sees no quick, all-purpose R&R hacks given individual needs, means and opportunity.
[ Workforce productivity in Irish economy falls by most in EU, latest data showsOpens in new window ]
Fellow R&R researcher Jessica de Bloom argues that longer breaks do not result in a provably longer, positive effect on our health and wellbeing. Her recent study found that day eight is most often the high point on our personal “holiday-happiness curve”.
“It’s better to travel four times for a week than once for four weeks,” said Prof de Bloom to Der Spiegel.
She also recommends returning to work midweek, with the next weekend around the corner, to minimise post-holiday stress.
A final study finding: hikers after an active break tended to have a better mental state than those on poolside cocktail-and-book breaks.
The wider benefits are clear: more Germans up a mountain means fewer at the pool. Whether this translates into fewer Germans using towels to reserve sun loungers is a subject worthy of scientific study.
Whenever, that is, the Germans get back to work.
