Overview
- Bavarian Premier Markus Söder reiterated that Germans should work one more hour per week, repeating the appeal on Instagram and urging tax incentives to encourage extra work rather than curbs on part-time roles.
- He pressed for swift coalition action and tied the push to scrapping telephone sick notes and phasing down the early-retirement route known as Rente mit 63.
- IW labor expert Holger Schäfer estimated that a one-hour increase could raise GDP by about 2.6 percent, or roughly €116 billion, assuming similar increases across full-time, part-time, and self-employed workers.
- IMK director Sebastian Dullien argued that weak order books would limit output gains from longer hours and warned the move could facilitate layoffs instead of hiring.
- Fresh criticism came from Die Linke’s Heidi Reichinnek, who called the idea “absolutely presumptuous,” echoing earlier rebukes from SPD and Green lawmakers over unpaid overtime and care-related part-time constraints.