According to data released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday, the proportion of women in leadership positions was significantly lower last year, standing at 30.3 percent, compared to the 47.1 percent representation of women among all employed individuals. While more women today occupy senior roles than they did over 30 years ago (25.8 percent in 1992), nearly seven out of ten executives in 2025 were still men.
Regarding working hours, 7.1 percent of the approximately 30 million full-time employees in Germany worked 49 hours or more per week last year. The highest rates of excessive working hours were observed among self-employed individuals with employees (44.5 percent) and solo self-employed persons (23.0 percent). In contrast, only 4.1 percent of all full-time employees reported working that many hours. On average, full-time employees worked 40.2 hours per week.
Generally, working hours tend to increase with age. While 1.4 percent of full-time employees aged 15 to 24 worked at least 49 hours weekly, this figure rose to 9.6 percent among full-time employees aged 55 to 64. One reason for these marked differences is the high incidence of long working hours among executives, who are more often found in older age groups and are predominantly male.
Self-employed individuals with employees frequently finish work later than employees. In 2025, 30.8 percent of self-employed individuals with employees worked regularly between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., compared to only one in seven employees (13.4 percent). The situation was more balanced concerning night shifts (11 p.m. to 6 a.m.), with 4.2 percent of self-employed workers and 4.3 percent of employees working overnight.
Insufficient work hours can also be a source of stress, not only because they usually lead to salary reductions. Some people work fewer hours because they cannot find a position requiring more time; 4.9 percent of the nearly 13 million part-time employees surveyed considered part-time work as a temporary solution in 2025 because they could not find a full-time job. This figure has more than halved since 2015 (12.9 percent). In 2025, 6.5 percent of part-time working men and 4.3 percent of women were actively searching for a full-time role.
Job insecurity, often linked to fixed-term contracts, represents another stress factor. In 2025, 7.2 percent of employees aged 25 and over in Germany were employed on fixed terms. Most of those on fixed contracts (52.4 percent) held contracts with a duration of less than one year, while 21.3 percent had contracts lasting between one and two years, and another 14.7 percent had contracts lasting two to under three years. 11.6 percent reported having a contract lasting more than three years.
In 2025, 41.3 percent of employees aged 25 and over had worked for their current employer for at least ten years. 20.1 percent worked at the same workplace for five to ten years, while more than one-third (38.6 percent) reported having been employed for less than five years.
