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Quitting time?
Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that
Photo: Thomas M Barwick/Getty Images
Work more than the contract says: That's what the Federal Statistical Office reports on average 4.5 million people in Germany last year.
That is around 12 percent of the 37.8 million dependent employees, i.e. white-collar workers, workers, civil servants and trainees.
At 14 percent, men work overtime a little more often than women (10 percent).
A lot of extra work is done in banks and insurance companies and in energy supply - here almost a fifth was still active after the end of the day.
The proportion was lowest at six percent in hospitality and the arts and entertainment industry (eight percent).
The explanation for this is likely to lie primarily in the restrictions imposed on companies by the corona pandemic.
For most employees, overtime was limited to a few hours a week, according to the statisticians.
Almost a third, however, worked at least 15 hours overtime per week.
The additional work is not always remunerated: almost 22 percent worked unpaid overtime.
Almost 18 percent were paid for overtime, 72 percent used a working time account;
the figures show that in some cases two or all three forms were connected.
"Numbers like this are worrying," says Bettina Kohlrausch, Scientific Director of the Economic and Social Sciences Institute of the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation: "Against this background, it becomes clear once again how unnecessary and counterproductive discussions about increasing weekly working hours are.
If you want to keep skilled workers, you want to take care of attractive working conditions.
In addition, working time arrangements that, for example, leave room for a better work-life balance.«
Most recently, the President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Siegfried Russwurm, spoke positively about an optional increase in weekly working hours with full wage compensation.
According to estimates by the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), there is a shortage of around a quarter of a million employees in the skilled trades alone in Germany.
There is also a blatant shortage of staff in aviation, gastronomy and other sectors.
mh/dpa