Long daily working hours for office workers do not mean an increased health risk, said the employer -related Institute of the German Economy (IW) in Cologne.
“Everyone who works more than ten hours a day does not report significantly more often of exhaustion or other stress symptoms as employees with shorter working days,” says an IW study, which initially reported “Welt Am Sonntag”.
The German government intends to reform the Working Hours Act
“Especially with office workers there are absolutely room – without negative effects,” write the authors of the study with a view to the reform of the Wourse Act planned by the German government.
Union and the SPD had announced that in accordance with the European Working Time Directive, they would create the possibility of a weekly instead of a daily maximum working hours in the Working Outs Act. According to the law, working hours may not be longer than eight hours.
“Where longer daily working hours are voluntarily accepted, this has no influence on satisfaction with work,” says the study. During very long daily working hours, no systematic negative abnormalities in working life were observed – such as lower job satisfaction, larger exhaustion or weakened ability to work.
Longer working days with possibly more than ten hours had no negative influence on the self -similar general health of office workers or the number of disease -related failure days.
Does not apply to any activity
The basis for the evaluation of the IW was a working time restoration of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine (BAAA) in 2021 – the last available survey year – of more than 8,600 office workers. The authors make it clear that their results apply to people with office jobs. But: “Not every activity is suitable for longer working hours- only about safety and health reasons. But you can venture more flexibility when it comes to office levels.”
Trade unions run storm against the farewell of the eight -hour day that has been customary since 1918. An analysis of the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute for Labor Law (HSI) of the trade union-related Hans Böckler Foundation came to a different result than the IW: “It has long been proven that working hours of more than eight hours of health health,” says HSI paper.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
