SPD demand for a four-day week: dangerous utopia

The calls for the four-day week have not died down for years - and the economic situation is absolutely clear: the German economic system is already threatening to reach its limits in view of the labor shortage, writes Prof. Michael Hüther from the employer-related Institute of German Economics (IW ) in the guest post.

In order to cushion demographic change, we have to work more, not less, warns the economist.

The idea of ​​the four-day week is one of the most enduring and popular utopias of our time.

After the IG Metall, the SPD is now bringing the proposal back into the discussion – completely regardless of the economic facts.

It has long been the case that anyone who would like to work a four-day week can agree this with their employer at any time, on the premise that exactly four days are paid.

This is part of the collective bargaining autonomy and is even stipulated by law.

However, the advocates of the four-day week usually want a different scenario: what is meant is fewer working hours for the same wages.

In order for this to work, productivity reserves would have to be slumbering across Germany, which employers are deliberately withheld from, specifically: It would have to be possible to increase labor productivity by 25 percent without any problems.

Those who keep such reserves hidden in their work processes should rather use them in a five-day week, which would mean more prosperity and at the same time combat the shortage of skilled workers.

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Four-day week: many question marks behind the British study

The British study published a few months ago is also of little help in the debate.

Many media reports were abbreviated, and so it was widely read that there was now scientifically based evidence of increased productivity with less work.

Only: The productivity was not measured at all, only the turnover - and this information was only provided by every second company.

Sales, on the other hand, are not a meaningful variable in this context, after all, they can also be kept constant by purchasing external services.

In addition, the companies that took part in the study were not selected to be representative, but were interested in the topic and applied for the study.

The vast majority of the 61 companies were service providers with office work, only three industrial companies were among them, so the results are not very meaningful.

Four-day week: Hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are already missing

But the biggest problem with the four-day reverie is an overall economic one.

The major challenges in the current and coming decade are demographic change and its consequences.

Companies are already missing hundreds of thousands of qualified specialists, and the trend is rising.

This is putting increasing pressure on our social systems: while there were still six workers for every pensioner in the early 1960s, by 2021 it was just around two.

An easing of the situation is not in sight. By 2030 we even expect that three million fewer people will be working than today, including many baby boomers.

This means we are short of 4.2 billion working hours.

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Demand for a four-day week: work more instead of less

This gap needs to be closed, and New Work trends and desired scenarios will do little to change that.

One to two hours more per week would not be a significant change and would at least relieve the system a little.

Sweden or Switzerland could serve as a model here: some work an hour more than we do, others even two hours.

Both nations tend to have a slightly higher life expectancy than Germany and are no less unhappy.

So it's no use ignoring these economic truths for motives such as voting or recruiting members: the four-day week with full wage compensation is a dangerous utopia that cannot be reconciled with macroeconomic reality.

Proponents are well advised to look for new, more reasonable topics.

About the person: Prof. Michael Hüther (born in 1962) holds a doctorate in economics and has been the director of the employer-oriented Institute of German Economics (IW) in Cologne since 2004.