As workers across Germany celebrate International Workers’ Day, the head of the country’s employers’ associations said people should spend more hours at work.
“We need more work in Germany, not less,” Rainer Dulger said in a statement on the group’s website on Wednesday.
“Germany discusses too much about the conditions of non-work and not enough about the value of work,” complained the president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA).
The question of how we can make Germany an attractive place to work again must be central, he said. “This also means that we will all have to work more and longer,” Dulger emphasized.
To achieve this, the conditions for work must be improved, he said.
“Work is much more than a necessity and this needs to be brought back into focus on May 1,” the BDA boss stressed, adding, “There is no such thing as effortless prosperity. And added value is created by private entrepreneurs.”
Dulger also emphasized the value of social partnership. “In times of low growth, an aging society and a major shortage of workers and skilled workers, we must work together to secure good jobs and prosperity in Germany for the future,” said Dulger.
He called on unions and politicians to “finally help shape work constructively again. That will help everyone: if the economy flourishes, wages will also rise faster.”
