I’m technically one of these “lifestyle” part-timers, at 35 instead of 40 hours a week. This reduction has had a noticeable impact on my mental health, to the point where I’d dare say my productivity hasn’t changed one bit.
But let’s be real: I cannot imagine that even Blackrockfritze believes that economic growth is determined by having longer working hours. This is a deliberate attempt to create another group of “lazy people” to lay the blame for the utter incompetence of his government.
Actually, economic growth potential has four causes, and the most important one in Germany is (public+private) investment in assets. The second most important cause is the overall volume of labor. So actually yes, economic growth has a lot to do with longer working hours. More investment in assets and education would otherwise lead to inflation, rather than real growth (real = creating welfare).
You are wrong. Plain and simple. Economic growth does not go hand in hand with more working hours. In fact productivity decreases with more working hours, potentially having even a negative impact.
There are enough studies that show that a 4 day working week increases productivity and mental health, leading to an overall better quality of life.
I don’t know how you can so confidently make mistaken statements. Economic growth and productivity growth are not the same thing.
Productivity growth can compensate for fewer hours worked in an economy. However, productivity growth has been decreasing for decades. At this point, we have to stop hoping for a mircale productivity boom.
In many ways, our growth and future wealth will rely on hard work (similarly to previous generations).
Well, many investments in general-purpose technologies were thought to create that productivity growth boom. AI (LLMs) is the most recent example. The productivity gains are not as large as for prior general-purpose technologies, like combustion engine vehicles or antibiotics. It’s nice that you are so optimistic that humanity just needs to try harder to raise productivity. And you’re right, past trends may not continue!
Well, if people work more hours due to public policy changes, that will lead to economic growth, given the currently high investments in assets. A key way to do this is to remove parttime entitlements and to reduce taxes on salaries.
Think about it. What will longer working hours really do?
They will create frustration, stress, more illness because of these two. It will lead to a reduction in productivity, reduction in worker motivation, overall reduced worker satisfaction.
How can you be so confident that this is a positive direction?
I’m confident that a larger volume of labor, assuming that investments in assets are made, will lead to economic growth, because that has been observed many times over in Economics research.
The development (working longer hours) is not positive. I would much rather prefer a productivity boom due to some general purpose technology. And that that raises economic growth.
But for me personally, going from working parttime to fulltime is not the worst thing ever either. I’ve done it before.
I hope you (and Emopunker who removed my comments, grrr) can see that the link between economic growth and the volume of labor is quite solid, and it should not engage people. There are only four levers to raise economic growth that are known in the literature (investments in assets, volume of labor, total factor productivity, education).
There are a lot of people for whom this is not an option though. Some examples include: people who are stressed and close to burnout, people with young children, people who take care of older family members, people who are old, people with chronic illnesses.
And I’d argue even “lifestyle part-timer” have a valid reason for not working more, they value their time higher than the money they could earn in that time. That’s capitalism. And if Fotzen-Fritze wants these people to work full time he has to make them an offer, not a threat.
People are not machines with linear productivity gain the more they work. That is why your argument is flawed. You only goes by numbers instead of counting in the human factor (if you genuinely mean it and aren’t trying to russle my jimmies). Majoring in economics doesn’t mean anything if you only learn half the stuff. I majored in political economy and was also in business and they are worlds apart. So I recommend you read up about the political economy (Volkswirtschaft).
I work 30h a week and Merz can fuck off. I would be getting a similar amount of work done, not more, but have a lot less free time to do what I really want and is probably just as productive in many ways, but not in their too limited economic indicators. Sports, cleaning the house, meeting people, growing tomatoes, sleeping enough etc etc
During my Probezeit through Leasingfirma I used to work 35h weeks. This shit slaps! 6:30 in, 14:00 out! Can go for Termin, can get my other shit done. If needed, can look for another job and attend interviews or apartment checks.
I’m technically one of these “lifestyle” part-timers, at 35 instead of 40 hours a week. This reduction has had a noticeable impact on my mental health, to the point where I’d dare say my productivity hasn’t changed one bit.
But let’s be real: I cannot imagine that even Blackrockfritze believes that economic growth is determined by having longer working hours. This is a deliberate attempt to create another group of “lazy people” to lay the blame for the utter incompetence of his government.
Actually, economic growth potential has four causes, and the most important one in Germany is (public+private) investment in assets. The second most important cause is the overall volume of labor. So actually yes, economic growth has a lot to do with longer working hours. More investment in assets and education would otherwise lead to inflation, rather than real growth (real = creating welfare).
You are wrong. Plain and simple. Economic growth does not go hand in hand with more working hours. In fact productivity decreases with more working hours, potentially having even a negative impact.
There are enough studies that show that a 4 day working week increases productivity and mental health, leading to an overall better quality of life.
More working hours has the opposite effect.
I don’t know how you can so confidently make mistaken statements. Economic growth and productivity growth are not the same thing.
Productivity growth can compensate for fewer hours worked in an economy. However, productivity growth has been decreasing for decades. At this point, we have to stop hoping for a mircale productivity boom.
In many ways, our growth and future wealth will rely on hard work (similarly to previous generations).
What do you mean „stop hoping“? We have not even tried to make it happen.
Forcing people to work more hours will not help.
Well, many investments in general-purpose technologies were thought to create that productivity growth boom. AI (LLMs) is the most recent example. The productivity gains are not as large as for prior general-purpose technologies, like combustion engine vehicles or antibiotics. It’s nice that you are so optimistic that humanity just needs to try harder to raise productivity. And you’re right, past trends may not continue!
Well, if people work more hours due to public policy changes, that will lead to economic growth, given the currently high investments in assets. A key way to do this is to remove parttime entitlements and to reduce taxes on salaries.
Think about it. What will longer working hours really do? They will create frustration, stress, more illness because of these two. It will lead to a reduction in productivity, reduction in worker motivation, overall reduced worker satisfaction.
How can you be so confident that this is a positive direction?
I’m confident that a larger volume of labor, assuming that investments in assets are made, will lead to economic growth, because that has been observed many times over in Economics research.
The development (working longer hours) is not positive. I would much rather prefer a productivity boom due to some general purpose technology. And that that raises economic growth.
But for me personally, going from working parttime to fulltime is not the worst thing ever either. I’ve done it before.
I hope you (and Emopunker who removed my comments, grrr) can see that the link between economic growth and the volume of labor is quite solid, and it should not engage people. There are only four levers to raise economic growth that are known in the literature (investments in assets, volume of labor, total factor productivity, education).
There are a lot of people for whom this is not an option though. Some examples include: people who are stressed and close to burnout, people with young children, people who take care of older family members, people who are old, people with chronic illnesses.
And I’d argue even “lifestyle part-timer” have a valid reason for not working more, they value their time higher than the money they could earn in that time. That’s capitalism. And if Fotzen-Fritze wants these people to work full time he has to make them an offer, not a threat.
People are not machines with linear productivity gain the more they work. That is why your argument is flawed. You only goes by numbers instead of counting in the human factor (if you genuinely mean it and aren’t trying to russle my jimmies). Majoring in economics doesn’t mean anything if you only learn half the stuff. I majored in political economy and was also in business and they are worlds apart. So I recommend you read up about the political economy (Volkswirtschaft).
I work 30h a week and Merz can fuck off. I would be getting a similar amount of work done, not more, but have a lot less free time to do what I really want and is probably just as productive in many ways, but not in their too limited economic indicators. Sports, cleaning the house, meeting people, growing tomatoes, sleeping enough etc etc
Exactly. Truth is, most people have maybe 2-3 hours effective work hours a day.
During my Probezeit through Leasingfirma I used to work 35h weeks. This shit slaps! 6:30 in, 14:00 out! Can go for Termin, can get my other shit done. If needed, can look for another job and attend interviews or apartment checks.