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Why Germans Work Fewer Hours but Produce More: A Study in Culture

115 points by rtcoms 12y ago

codeulike 12y ago
Interesting, but feels a bit like pop-sociology. Any citations? Any evidence that this isn't just broad brush generalisations based on anecdotes and stereotypes?
- error54 12y ago
  Agreed. It links some article about how Germany is a "powerhouse" and then goes on to make some seemingly stereotypical claims about why.
- vendakka 12y ago
  It does feel a bit like they are over generalising. In that spirit, anecdotal evidence feels appropriately non-rigorous. I'm Indian, worked in Silicon Valley for about 6 years and then moved to a small town in Germany a year back. Given this, I've seen both cultures from the perspective of an outsider. In my limited experience life feels more relaxed here in Germany. However, it definitely feels like less gets done here compared to Silicon Valley. Keep in mind that of those 6 years, 3 were at Google and 2 at a startup so I might have a positively biased view of American productivity :)
spindritf 12y ago
Do they actually produce more? It seems like they produce almost 15% less per hour worked than Americans for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP... And while the stats here are collated, it's not nearly as worthless a measure as nominal GDP of the whole country. In Europe (according to Eurostat so possibly using comparable methodology), they're behind France. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec310&plugin=0 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init...
- hollerith 12y ago
  15% less than Americans is also what is indicated by http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    I would want to know if military, prisons, and the amount we outspend European economies in health care count as productive output.
    - hollerith 12y ago
      They do count, if I understand correctly. In particular, the figure I quoted has been adjusted to try to account for differences in the cost of living in the 2 countries ("purchasing power parity"), but I doubt the adjustment takes into account the fact that Americans spend more for health care while enduring worse health outcomes than Germans do -- or the fact that American spend more on prisoners while enduring higher rates of crime than Germans do. (I never meant to imply that the US is superior to Germany, just to illuminate one of the limitations of the OP.)
      - Zigurd 12y ago
        I get it, and I also suspect that financial services is a large factor is US productivity. And even within financial services there is productivity in, say, retail banking and insurance that most people would equate with productivity in any service function on the one hand, and productivity in creating trillions in derivatives where the risk came to bite us in the arse. Was the "productivity" in that adjusted downward when derivatives fueled the financial crisis bomb? As others have suggested, I'd like to see productivity on a per-industry basis.
- ssivark 12y ago
  I would like to understand all the nitty-gritty deails behind those numbers. 1. How are work hours measured, do they include overtime, etc. 2. How is "productivity" measured? Eg: if an American company has a factory in China, then are the man-hours in those factories accounted for in a reasonable way, because the profits of those products are probably being counted. Or maybe the measures only calculate the value added by American workers.
jamesaguilar 12y ago
If you're reading about the focus of Germans and wishing that described you (i.e. you want to cut out Facebook, gmail, etc.), there are a lot of technological solutions that can move you in the right direction. For me the pair that have worked best are TagTime and Beeminder. I'm not where I want to be on focus, but having a constant incentive to focus well has substantially moved the needle on that.
guilamu 12y ago
French are working even less and produce even more: http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-produ...
- nraynaud 12y ago
  Not to step into a troll, but basically depending on the metric you take, it is either less or more (it's a big troll in France), so I prefer to think we work about the same. But the office habits are very different, in France people leave the office way later than in Germany or the US (6 or 7pm), so it's quite a shock for some foreigners (basically our lunch break is longer, and our coffee breaks are shorter). You might have trouble getting a hold of people on Friday afternoon because they might take it off, and more and more on Wednesday (some people just take a 20% salary cut and spend one day with their kids).
trvz 12y ago
Writing from Germany, this article is shallow and stereotypical due to not being well researched. Please don't read it, or forget what you read in it; not all work is good work, and you shouldn't value bad work; this article is a bad article.
- bsg75 12y ago
  I have read similar articles before, and would be interested to counterpoints you might have.
  - merb 12y ago
    > A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form. Somebody said that. And currently It's true. (I live there aswell). The most companies aren't very efficent when it comes to stuff like paperwork. Look at our governement. We could save lots of money if we would change a few things. Also we are a nation that could only problems that needs a lot of work and are long living. We aren't good in rapidly changing things, like internet business. Let's look at our IT companies as an example. We have SAP. But SAP's business is around money which needs to be stable and can't emerge rapidly. Also when somebody in germany founds a super fast growing thing he will sell it really early. There is no billion dollar internet company.
- mad44 12y ago
  Your comment provides a fine example of German efficiency :-)
marban 12y ago
A pothole of stereotypes combined with cheesy imagery. Seriously, why the upvotes?
jotm 12y ago
This article is bullshit fluff. In Germany, I've witnessed excellent efficiency of course, but most of the workers are dicking around just as much as their counterparts from any other country. They're not machines, after all. I won't get into details, but here's some first hand observations: the health care is great, the pay is average, the taxes are high, the Internet is average, working hours are average and there is no minimum salary (also there are people who work 9-6 incl. Saturdays, mostly foreigners), people are great, crime is low, language is hard, opportunities through the roof, business is hard (esp. compared to the US and nearby UK), basic living prices are OK, but any "luxuries" are expensive.
- danieldk 12y ago
  In Germany, I've witnessed excellent efficiency of course, I live in Germany. Coming from The Netherlands, it surprises me how inefficient Germany often is. A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form. The private sector is not much better. E.g. in NL I could arrange virtually all my banking affairs via internet. Here, except for some internet banks (such as the non-German ING DiBa), you have to go to an office to arrange anything. In NL, most local branches are gone from villages and are slowly retracting from cities as well. Here you have many branches in a small city, with many employees (probably because stuff is all handled on paper) and royal interiors. And then you have to go to the bank every couple of weeks to print your statements using a machine (I am not making this up). Compared to Northern European countries, there is a huge space for increasing efficiency. there is no minimum salary Yes. This is I dislike very much too, it's hard to see people working hard, only earning a few Euros per hour in an extremely rich society. Luckily, Germany may finally see a minimum wage now that the SPD is part of the government again.
  - danbruc 12y ago
    What does virtually all banking stuff include? I don't think there are any banks not offering online banking remaining.
chhantyal 12y ago
The article just narrates this documentary by BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4 In article, it compares with US, documentary compares with UK.
thomasfl 12y ago
Studies shows Scandinavians usually put in fewer hours than people form other european countries. Bosses normally don't stay late at the office to make sure employees do what they are told. Instead there are lot's of long meetings where tasks are delegated.
allendoerfer 12y ago
History has given us an image of crazy-efficient labour-soldiers and (evil) thinkers, which is passed on with articles like this. In reality Germany is just an export nation with solid centuries-old world-known brands, a currency of an emerging country [0] and stagnating wages [1], producing luxury and investment goods, while Asia's growth creates demand for these like crazy. [0]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-downgraded-to-emerging-market-but-will-it-ever-emerge/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-d... [1]: http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de
- justincormack 12y ago
  Germany also produces non luxury and non investment goods, it has a world class engineering industry producing all sorts of products.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
Well, the reason Germans produce more is because they have more industry. Machines could do the work of lots of people and Germany has lots of capital, lots of automation and lots of organization. What I hate about Germany is their Winter. I would happily live there 6 months a year, the other six in Argentina, SA or Australia.
johnnyio 12y ago
Even if they work less hours in average, this is the french people who is the most productive. And this is probably related. http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-produ...

115 points by rtcoms 12y ago

Interesting, but feels a bit like pop-sociology. Any citations? Any evidence that this isn't just broad brush generalisations based on anecdotes and stereotypes?

error54 12y ago
Agreed. It links some article about how Germany is a "powerhouse" and then goes on to make some seemingly stereotypical claims about why.
vendakka 12y ago
It does feel a bit like they are over generalising. In that spirit, anecdotal evidence feels appropriately non-rigorous. I'm Indian, worked in Silicon Valley for about 6 years and then moved to a small town in Germany a year back. Given this, I've seen both cultures from the perspective of an outsider. In my limited experience life feels more relaxed here in Germany. However, it definitely feels like less gets done here compared to Silicon Valley. Keep in mind that of those 6 years, 3 were at Google and 2 at a startup so I might have a positively biased view of American productivity :)

spindritf 12y ago

Do they actually produce more? It seems like they produce almost 15% less per hour worked than Americans for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP... And while the stats here are collated, it's not nearly as worthless a measure as nominal GDP of the whole country. In Europe (according to Eurostat so possibly using comparable methodology), they're behind France. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec310&plugin=0 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init...

hollerith 12y ago
15% less than Americans is also what is indicated by http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  I would want to know if military, prisons, and the amount we outspend European economies in health care count as productive output.
  - hollerith 12y ago
    They do count, if I understand correctly. In particular, the figure I quoted has been adjusted to try to account for differences in the cost of living in the 2 countries ("purchasing power parity"), but I doubt the adjustment takes into account the fact that Americans spend more for health care while enduring worse health outcomes than Germans do -- or the fact that American spend more on prisoners while enduring higher rates of crime than Germans do. (I never meant to imply that the US is superior to Germany, just to illuminate one of the limitations of the OP.)
    - Zigurd 12y ago
      I get it, and I also suspect that financial services is a large factor is US productivity. And even within financial services there is productivity in, say, retail banking and insurance that most people would equate with productivity in any service function on the one hand, and productivity in creating trillions in derivatives where the risk came to bite us in the arse. Was the "productivity" in that adjusted downward when derivatives fueled the financial crisis bomb? As others have suggested, I'd like to see productivity on a per-industry basis.
ssivark 12y ago
I would like to understand all the nitty-gritty deails behind those numbers. 1. How are work hours measured, do they include overtime, etc. 2. How is "productivity" measured? Eg: if an American company has a factory in China, then are the man-hours in those factories accounted for in a reasonable way, because the profits of those products are probably being counted. Or maybe the measures only calculate the value added by American workers.

jamesaguilar 12y ago

If you're reading about the focus of Germans and wishing that described you (i.e. you want to cut out Facebook, gmail, etc.), there are a lot of technological solutions that can move you in the right direction. For me the pair that have worked best are TagTime and Beeminder. I'm not where I want to be on focus, but having a constant incentive to focus well has substantially moved the needle on that.

guilamu 12y ago

French are working even less and produce even more: http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-produ...

nraynaud 12y ago
Not to step into a troll, but basically depending on the metric you take, it is either less or more (it's a big troll in France), so I prefer to think we work about the same. But the office habits are very different, in France people leave the office way later than in Germany or the US (6 or 7pm), so it's quite a shock for some foreigners (basically our lunch break is longer, and our coffee breaks are shorter). You might have trouble getting a hold of people on Friday afternoon because they might take it off, and more and more on Wednesday (some people just take a 20% salary cut and spend one day with their kids).

trvz 12y ago

Writing from Germany, this article is shallow and stereotypical due to not being well researched. Please don't read it, or forget what you read in it; not all work is good work, and you shouldn't value bad work; this article is a bad article.

bsg75 12y ago
I have read similar articles before, and would be interested to counterpoints you might have.
- merb 12y ago
  > A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form. Somebody said that. And currently It's true. (I live there aswell). The most companies aren't very efficent when it comes to stuff like paperwork. Look at our governement. We could save lots of money if we would change a few things. Also we are a nation that could only problems that needs a lot of work and are long living. We aren't good in rapidly changing things, like internet business. Let's look at our IT companies as an example. We have SAP. But SAP's business is around money which needs to be stable and can't emerge rapidly. Also when somebody in germany founds a super fast growing thing he will sell it really early. There is no billion dollar internet company.
mad44 12y ago
Your comment provides a fine example of German efficiency :-)

marban 12y ago

A pothole of stereotypes combined with cheesy imagery. Seriously, why the upvotes?

jotm 12y ago

This article is bullshit fluff. In Germany, I've witnessed excellent efficiency of course, but most of the workers are dicking around just as much as their counterparts from any other country. They're not machines, after all. I won't get into details, but here's some first hand observations: the health care is great, the pay is average, the taxes are high, the Internet is average, working hours are average and there is no minimum salary (also there are people who work 9-6 incl. Saturdays, mostly foreigners), people are great, crime is low, language is hard, opportunities through the roof, business is hard (esp. compared to the US and nearby UK), basic living prices are OK, but any "luxuries" are expensive.

danieldk 12y ago
In Germany, I've witnessed excellent efficiency of course, I live in Germany. Coming from The Netherlands, it surprises me how inefficient Germany often is. A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form. The private sector is not much better. E.g. in NL I could arrange virtually all my banking affairs via internet. Here, except for some internet banks (such as the non-German ING DiBa), you have to go to an office to arrange anything. In NL, most local branches are gone from villages and are slowly retracting from cities as well. Here you have many branches in a small city, with many employees (probably because stuff is all handled on paper) and royal interiors. And then you have to go to the bank every couple of weeks to print your statements using a machine (I am not making this up). Compared to Northern European countries, there is a huge space for increasing efficiency. there is no minimum salary Yes. This is I dislike very much too, it's hard to see people working hard, only earning a few Euros per hour in an extremely rich society. Luckily, Germany may finally see a minimum wage now that the SPD is part of the government again.
- danbruc 12y ago
  What does virtually all banking stuff include? I don't think there are any banks not offering online banking remaining.

chhantyal 12y ago

The article just narrates this documentary by BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4 In article, it compares with US, documentary compares with UK.

thomasfl 12y ago

Studies shows Scandinavians usually put in fewer hours than people form other european countries. Bosses normally don't stay late at the office to make sure employees do what they are told. Instead there are lot's of long meetings where tasks are delegated.

allendoerfer 12y ago

History has given us an image of crazy-efficient labour-soldiers and (evil) thinkers, which is passed on with articles like this. In reality Germany is just an export nation with solid centuries-old world-known brands, a currency of an emerging country [0] and stagnating wages [1], producing luxury and investment goods, while Asia's growth creates demand for these like crazy. [0]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-downgraded-to-emerging-market-but-will-it-ever-emerge/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/06/20/greece-d... [1]: http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de

justincormack 12y ago
Germany also produces non luxury and non investment goods, it has a world class engineering industry producing all sorts of products.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

Well, the reason Germans produce more is because they have more industry. Machines could do the work of lots of people and Germany has lots of capital, lots of automation and lots of organization. What I hate about Germany is their Winter. I would happily live there 6 months a year, the other six in Argentina, SA or Australia.

johnnyio 12y ago

Even if they work less hours in average, this is the french people who is the most productive. And this is probably related. http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-produ...