Andrea Nahles, the CEO of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), views the widely held desire among workers for shorter working hours as unproblematic, provided that productivity increases. A survey conducted by the Bonn Research Center (uzbonn) on behalf of the DGB reveals that more than half of all employees in Germany wish to work fewer hours. To the news broadcaster “Welt” Nahles stated that the issue is primarily one of productivity, rather than the number of hours worked. She emphasized, “What we truly face is a productivity problem in Germany. We even have a negative number there. This means I am indifferent to how many hours or how many workers we have. The decisive factor is that we must become more productive”.
She added that increasing added value does not solely come from working more hours; rather, it can be driven by the intelligent deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and the interaction between humans and machines. Nahles pointed to AI as the most significant leverage point for the future aimed at boosting productivity and value creation. However, according to her, these discussions in Germany often occur in a climate of “great anxiety and great reservation”.
She noted that this attitude is currently changing. Based on data from the IAB institute, the BA has determined that 25 percent of German companies are now genuinely implementing AI, a significant jump from just five percent in 2023. “This is the real leverage we need to pull to genuinely achieve higher productivity. This would move us forward. Innovation and productivity-and of course, work must be done for this-but I feel that in Germany, there is not enough focus on the real inflection point, because for me, that point is productivity”.
