A nation of workaholics has a new fixation: working less

livemint.com:

Fleiß, which can translate as diligence or industriousness. Fleiß shaped the political conversation during the eurozone debt crisis of 2010, when many German voters resented having to bail out their Greek cousins who retired at 57 and, going by the news footage, seemed to spend their lives sipping espresso on cafe terraces. Fast-forward to today and the average Greek worked 1,897 hours last year, according to the OECD, 554 hours more than the average German.

Greeks now retire at 67, and a new law allowing a six-day workweek went into force last month. Meanwhile in Germany, 50 companies are piloting a four-day week for a study by the University of Münster aiming to determine whether less work and full pay might be appealing to workers. The EU expects the Greek economy to grow by 2.2% this year while the German economy hasn’t grown since 2019.

“The crisis taught Greeks that success comes from hard work," said Alex Kirgiannakis, a former securities trader from Thessaloniki who now runs Apló, a popular Greek fast-food restaurant with two locations in Berlin. “I employ quite a few Greeks. Also Italians and Spaniards.

Germans less so…They know the system well and when you do, you tend to abuse the system." Frequent visitors have long taken Germany’s hardworking folklore with a pinch of salt. Sunday shopping is largely banned and the standard out-of-office email reads: “I’m currently out. Your message will be neither forwarded nor read." Universities largely let students pick the pace of their learning, with many graduating well into their 30s, and about half of schoolchildren attend school only in the morning.