this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Your remember when Germany claimed that Greece doesn't work enough? (feddit.bg)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Around Germany and Greece there were other countries. They went by names like frugal four and PIIGS. They forced "austerity" and stricter working hours onto indebted countries to save their own banks.

The colours on this map show well that northern "productivity" is not about working hours, but about other topics that did not get addressed. Among these topics are also tax heavens (think the Netherlands) and money laundering (think Austria's special relationship with Russia).

So it was nothing more than poor political leadership without vision.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

"Tax haven", though I like OP's version too

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

It would interesting to see this vs the average in the US.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

Portuguese work way more than that

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Also having some... spicy thoughts about french neoliberal politicians constantly saying German workers are so much better than us lazy assholes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

My guess is cause they are rich people from Paris and based on my experience with paris, that number is actually a cumulative number of hours for everyone who lives in Paris

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

Yeah I have spicy thoughts for them too, would be great if they tried doing a real job to see how it feels

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

cries in American

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Here's the source for that image. While the article was published in 2024, the data is from 2023.

Tangentially related, last year Greece went to a six-day 48-hour work week.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

They go to work for one half-hour, two half-hour. Then do something cool for lunch like a cigarette, 2-3 bottles of a red wine and a bowl of heavy cream.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Greek bail out was inherently a bail out of bond holders... Many of which were German 🤡

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That, and the eurozone in general.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Correct majority of bond holders were French and German.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What matter is the productivity of those hours, if they work longer hours but their time isn't as productive then another country might be better off with less average work hours.

We could also ask why they work so much and we need to check unemployment levels and salaries. If the ones who work do so for 50h (pulling the average up), is it maybe because unemployment is high and wages are low so they need to compensate to feed their family?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

okay, but regarding productivity: do you really buy that idea?

Because to me that would imply that greek workers are just less productive than german workers, which is why they have to work so hard.

There are a lot of other factors at play

I'm German for context. I was born into a country that was already pretty well-off economically speaking, long before I could participate. I got a great education for free. I dont work less because I'm more productive or efficient. I work less, because our country can afford better labor laws and there is a social net that catches family members who are struggling and/or have bad health. I got work at all because the german economy performs comparably well and our politicians and rich people didnt screw up this bad. At least not when our own country is concerned. Dont want to make a statement about foreign policy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

They might be, they might not be, but if they are less productive even when working more hours then something must be done to both help the country and give them more free time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

well, what happened is that Greece was forced into a state of austerity that didnt help absolve them of debt and ultimately caused more damage than good. Especially for the working population.

Thats kinda important, regarding Germanys role in "helping" the country.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

And that's all stuff that reflects on productivity.

Take two factories making the same thing in Germany and Greece, evaluate the productivity per work hours, one is lower, compare different things in both factories to point to what can change in the one where productivity is lower to make it as productive as the other one.

The less productive one gives no breaks except for lunch to their employees? Try giving them more breaks. The less productive one has older technology? Update it.

The point isn't to find who's responsible, the point is to find what works in one place and seeing if it can be implemented elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm working in software. Don't tell me that I'm more productive when I work in finance than when I work in social services. Because that's what the numbers show. It's just that in finance your work generates more revenue and gives you a bigger salary. That's what productivity measures. And people in many places around the world, including Southern Europe do not really care about revenues as long as they have enough to live well. That's how they end up with lower "productivity". Of course in other sectors it's not ai immediate, but it is the same. If you are a farmer and sell to your community, you're not productive. If you export to retail chains you're very productive.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Obviously you compare people doing the same thing. If two employees with the same position have vastly different productivity you know there's an issue with one of them. It's the same thing when comparing neighboring countries, two manufacturing plants producing the same thing have vastly different productivity for the same amount of work hours? What's different between them?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I understand you're fine with measuring everything in revenue. Fortunately, human happiness and satisfaction are not measured in dollars.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It isn't necessarily revenues, how many patients a physiotherapist sees on average over a year is a measure of productivity, if you see that it's much lower for all of them in country X vs Y then you can start looking at how they work compared to one another and you could realize that it's a paperwork issue that makes the physios from country X less productive and then you can implement the paperwork management process from country Y in country X.

We have this exact issue where I'm from, doctors spend about 25% of their time doing paperwork where it's much lower in other jurisdictions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is drifting off, but number of visits is not an indication of healthcare success. Perceived improvement could be.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Do I really have to give specific examples of everything or you're able to extrapolate yourself that you use a mix of data to dress a portrait of the situation and then you're able to compare and see the differences between countries or regions? In the end that's what you're looking for, inefficiencies that can be fixed.

Hell in office jobs it's well known that they accomplish the same amount of work in 35h in France as they accomplish in 40h in the US as they accomplish in 60h in Japan, so clearly productivity per hour is best in France.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Exactly, often workers of mental labor have a general amount of mental labor they can give to their job per week. They'll try to get that labor done at a pace suiting themselves and attempt to look busy the remainder of the time they're at work. That or they'll try to push themselves and often produce subpar work after a certain point. Good workers self optimize to the best of their ability and comfort. Letting them go home once they've done a day's work can actually improve productivity as they don't have to spend mental energy pretending to work or getting frustrated they aren't finding the solutions and instead can rest or focus on recreational tasks and return refreshed.

Last I checked, and this is as an American, 30-32 hours is a pretty good amount. But labor has the right to fight for conditions better than that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

No never heard that claim. But I have heard that they (politicians) want to increase the age of retirement, which last I heard was 60 years. But there is a very strong resistance to it in the population.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There is a massive issue with that data. Namely that it only looks at people, who actually have a job. Generally speaking employers prefer full time workers over part time. Obviously somebody working part time is still more productive, then an unemployed person. In France 52.8% of women over 15 work, in Italy it is 41.3%. Then you get things like unemployment, which tends to be much much higher in the south.

That is why Spain is working on reducing the work week. It lower the high unemployment rate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I agree for the rest, but wait to see how automotive failing to reform itself will lead to much much higher unemployment in the South of Germany.

I have nothing against Germans or automotive. I have a lot against local feudals and communities that are fine with them as long as they can call themselves a working class. If your slave owner is richer than someone else's this doesn't really make you richer, you are still as dependent as a slave.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

The automotive industry is why Germany has such a bad time economicly speaking. At least in the last five years or so. Car sales in the Europe(EU, UK &EFTA) were 15,805,752 in 2019 and only 12,963,614 in 2024. Obviously car manufacturers prefer cheaper factories in eastern Europe over the more expensive German ones, hence you see them shrinking staff. For the suppliers it is even worse, as a lot of them are specialized in combustion engines. With BEVs doing what they do, that means mass layoffs. That is why German automotive industry only employees 761,000 workers today. In 2018 it was 834,000.

At the same time Germany is able to do much more then just automotive and those sectors are able to grow. Hence you see stagnation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Greek clocks don’t work most of the time either.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

Working a lot is nothing to be proud of.

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