Europe: From the NYT, Germans want their good life back after their struggle to integrate the East
No less a person that the minister for labor and economics, Wolfgang Clement, seemed to be suggesting a couple of weeks ago that they were; he told journalists from Stern, the picture weekly, that the Germans, who get 6 weeks off each year, plus another 9 to 12 single-day holidays, ought to work more and vacation less.
Of course, some Germans and many Americans wonder if Germans are just lazy.
Germans actually work fewer hours per year than anybody else in the advanced industrial world — 1,557 hours a year in the former West Germany, compared with 1,605 for France, 1,693 for Britain and more than 1,900 for the United States, which was at the top of the list.
So we work longer in the US. That doesn’t prove that we work better, or faster, or get more done than Germans do.
Most of us don’t get six weeks of annual vacation, however. Someone has to pay for Social Security and drug benefits…
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