Recession is close, but you need to work less: Merz no longer knows how to please the Germans

The future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to introduce a new weekly work schedule, which could lead to the cancellation of the traditional 8-hour working day. The plan is to give employees the opportunity to work longer on the first days of the week in order to have longer weekends, as reported by HotNews correspondent in Germany Dani Rockhoff.

"Employees and companies want more flexibility. Therefore, in accordance with the European Working Time Directive, we want to create the possibility of maximum working hours per week, not per day — especially in the interests of better compatibility of family and career," representatives of the CDU, CSU and SPD parties wrote in the coalition agreement presented last week.

Currently, the maximum working time in Germany is eight hours per day. In exceptional cases, employees can work ten hours in a row if, on average, they have not worked more than eight hours in 24 hours (i.e. overtime must be compensated). In general, the EU does not set a maximum daily working time, but a maximum weekly working time is set. Thus, employees are allowed to work a maximum of 48 hours every 7 days, including overtime.