

Why Germans Work Fewer Hours but Produce More: A Study in Culture - rtcoms
http://knote.com/2014/11/10/why-germans-work-fewer-hours-but-produce-more-a-study-in-culture/

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trvz
Writing from Germany, this article is shallow and stereotypical due to not
being well researched.

Please don't read it, or forget what you read in it; not all work is good
work, and you shouldn't value bad work; this article is a bad article.

~~~
bsg75
I have read similar articles before, and would be interested to counterpoints
you might have.

~~~
merb
> A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations
> barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had
> taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor
> thing, you have to fill in a form.

Somebody said that. And currently It's true. (I live there aswell).

The most companies aren't very efficent when it comes to stuff like paperwork.
Look at our governement. We could save lots of money if we would change a few
things.

Also we are a nation that could only problems that needs a lot of work and are
long living. We aren't good in rapidly changing things, like internet
business. Let's look at our IT companies as an example. We have SAP. But SAP's
business is around money which needs to be stable and can't emerge rapidly.
Also when somebody in germany founds a super fast growing thing he will sell
it really early. There is no billion dollar internet company.

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jotm
This article is bullshit fluff. In Germany, I've witnessed excellent
efficiency of course, but most of the workers are dicking around just as much
as their counterparts from any other country. They're not machines, after all.

I won't get into details, but here's some first hand observations: the health
care is great, the pay is average, the taxes are high, the Internet is
average, working hours are average and there is no minimum salary (also there
are people who work 9-6 incl. Saturdays, mostly foreigners), people are great,
crime is low, language is hard, opportunities through the roof, business is
hard (esp. compared to the US and nearby UK), basic living prices are OK, but
any "luxuries" are expensive.

~~~
danieldk
_In Germany, I 've witnessed excellent efficiency of course,_

I live in Germany. Coming from The Netherlands, it surprises me how
inefficient Germany often is. A lot of administration is still done on paper.
Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-
native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of
that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form.

The private sector is not much better. E.g. in NL I could arrange virtually
all my banking affairs via internet. Here, except for some internet banks
(such as the non-German ING DiBa), you have to go to an office to arrange
anything. In NL, most local branches are gone from villages and are slowly
retracting from cities as well. Here you have many branches in a small city,
with many employees (probably because stuff is all handled on paper) and royal
interiors. And then you have to go to the bank every couple of weeks to print
your statements using a machine (I am not making this up).

Compared to Northern European countries, there is a huge space for increasing
efficiency.

 _there is no minimum salary_

Yes. This is I dislike very much too, it's hard to see people working hard,
only earning a few Euros per hour in an extremely rich society. Luckily,
Germany may finally see a minimum wage now that the SPD is part of the
government again.

~~~
gioele
> A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations
> barely communicate, […] For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form.

My impression is that Germany requires a lot of paperwork, but this paperwork
is often well guided and backed by organizations that are reasonably big and
efficient. So the inefficiencies of living in a "paper bureaucracy" where you
have to fill out a form for everything are there, but people barely notice
them because the bureaucratic machine is well oiled.

The problem is that if you happen to meet one of the not well oiled parts of
the mechanism you will be crushed by the bureaucracy. But this is mostly a
foreigners' problem, so it not a very important part of the political agenda.

~~~
chhantyal
This is true, I am foreigner and I still find it fairly straight forward to
work with bureaucracy here.

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spindritf
Do they actually produce more? It seems like they produce almost 15% less per
hour worked than Americans for example.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked)

And while the stats here are collated, it's not nearly as worthless a measure
as nominal GDP of the whole country.

In Europe (according to Eurostat so possibly using comparable methodology),
they're behind France.

[http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init...](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec310&plugin=0)

~~~
ssivark
I would like to understand all the nitty-gritty deails behind those numbers.

1\. How are work hours measured, do they include overtime, etc.

2\. How is "productivity" measured? Eg: if an American company has a factory
in China, then are the man-hours in those factories accounted for in a
reasonable way, because the profits of those products are probably being
counted. Or maybe the measures only calculate the value added by American
workers.

~~~
justincormack
Yes it will be value added in the country being measured. But if you get stuff
assembled or made to order you are keeping the value added from design etc.

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allendoerfer
History has given us an image of crazy-efficient labour-soldiers and (evil)
thinkers, which is passed on with articles like this.

In reality Germany is just an export nation with solid centuries-old world-
known brands, a currency of an emerging country [0] and stagnating wages [1],
producing luxury and investment goods, while Asia's growth creates demand for
these like crazy.

[0]:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-d...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-
downgraded-to-emerging-market-but-will-it-ever-emerge/)

[1]:
[http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de](http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de)

~~~
justincormack
Germany also produces non luxury and non investment goods, it has a world
class engineering industry producing all sorts of products.

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guilamu
French are working even less and produce even more:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-
produ...](http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-
people-in-the-world-2009-8)

~~~
nraynaud
Not to step into a troll, but basically depending on the metric you take, it
is either less or more (it's a big troll in France), so I prefer to think we
work about the same.

But the office habits are very different, in France people leave the office
way later than in Germany or the US (6 or 7pm), so it's quite a shock for some
foreigners (basically our lunch break is longer, and our coffee breaks are
shorter). You might have trouble getting a hold of people on Friday afternoon
because they might take it off, and more and more on Wednesday (some people
just take a 20% salary cut and spend one day with their kids).

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codeulike
Interesting, but feels a bit like pop-sociology. Any citations? Any evidence
that this isn't just broad brush generalisations based on anecdotes and
stereotypes?

~~~
vendakka
It does feel a bit like they are over generalising. In that spirit, anecdotal
evidence feels appropriately non-rigorous. I'm Indian, worked in Silicon
Valley for about 6 years and then moved to a small town in Germany a year
back. Given this, I've seen both cultures from the perspective of an outsider.
In my limited experience life feels more relaxed here in Germany. However, it
definitely feels like less gets done here compared to Silicon Valley. Keep in
mind that of those 6 years, 3 were at Google and 2 at a startup so I might
have a positively biased view of American productivity :)

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jamesaguilar
If you're reading about the focus of Germans and wishing that described you
(i.e. you want to cut out Facebook, gmail, etc.), there are a lot of
technological solutions that can move you in the right direction. For me the
pair that have worked best are TagTime and Beeminder. I'm not where I want to
be on focus, but having a constant incentive to focus well has substantially
moved the needle on that.

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marban
A pothole of stereotypes combined with cheesy imagery. Seriously, why the
upvotes?

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chhantyal
The article just narrates this documentary by BBC
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4)

In article, it compares with US, documentary compares with UK.

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Htsthbjig
Well, the reason Germans produce more is because they have more industry.

Machines could do the work of lots of people and Germany has lots of capital,
lots of automation and lots of organization.

What I hate about Germany is their Winter. I would happily live there 6 months
a year, the other six in Argentina, SA or Australia.

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thomasfl
Studies shows Scandinavians usually put in fewer hours than people form other
european countries. Bosses normally don't stay late at the office to make sure
employees do what they are told. Instead there are lot's of long meetings
where tasks are delegated.

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johnnyio
Even if they work less hours in average, this is the french people who is the
most productive. And this is probably related.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-
produ...](http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-
people-in-the-world-2009-8?IR=T)

