> They are hard workers
Where does this cliché come from? Germans work less than any other country on the planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
Where does this cliché come from? Germans work less than any other country on the planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
> "Another important factor is the extent to which part-time work is widespread, […]"
I would argue being a "hard worker" means efficiency, not total amount. Sadly I don't have any data on that, or even any idea how to measure this.
GDP is a pretty rough metric for efficiency, but it's among the better ones that are collected somewhat uniformly.
"average hours worked * number of people working" is an approximation of total of person-hours worked (approx. because both numbers are probably cleaned up a bit in incompatible ways)
The result would be the value a person in the country contributes to the GDP every hour (on average), which should serve as a reasonably proxy for efficiency.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/gdp-per-hour-worked/...
Of course, efficiency can mean things beyond productivity.
Is there a "GDP of only the industrial sector"?
In my opinion, Germany was at some point at the top of the world in most aspects, and the people became complacent over time. Which leads us to where we are today. Enshittification is palpable in every single aspect of society. No one cares about doing a good job anymore. Getting something done takes months where it should take days. And then that thing you got done breaks in a few weeks.
I'm sorry for the rant. I got pretty burned out of living there.
I think the trope is due to hotter weather. Like tourists visiting in the summer seeing outside workers hardly working due to hot weather.