According to the law the week is Monday through Saturday, 6*8=48... We often tend to forget that we fought hard for the five day week. So while it's common fo

According to the law the week is Monday through Saturday, 6*8=48... We often tend to forget that we fought hard for the five day week. So while it's common for qualified jobs to have a 40h/WK contract, high workload opens the door to extend the week to 6 days, "Saturday work". Again for qualified jobs you better compensate your people well for that... For the floating average of 8h per day the rules then reference your usual regular work week. So if you are on a 5 day contract (like most people these days), that's where the 40h week comes from. For those amongst us who regularly do 6 days, 48h is perfectly legal in Germany. And temporarily those numbers go up to 50/60h weeks. The floating mean has to go down to 40/48 though. Iirc within a 6 month period, which is not law but usual (court) reading of the law.