According to German Chancellor Merz, people in Germany don’t work very hard. And what about Italia?

The debate sparked in Germany by Chancellor Friedrich Merz touches on a hot-button issue, but the situation in Italy is radically different from that in Germany. Merz has criticised the German model, arguing that people in the country work too little, and is pushing for reforms that would move beyond the historic 8-hour working day in favour of greater weekly flexibility to boost the economy.

Data from the OECD confirm his initial figures: Germany has the lowest average number of hours worked per year per worker among member countries (around 1,340 hours per year), mainly due to a very high proportion of part-time contracts and mini-jobs.

Whilst in Germany the political focus is on reduced working hours, in Italia the situation is the opposite. Italian workers spend much more time at work than their German counterparts. Looking at official OECD data on the actual hours worked per year per worker, in Germany the figure is around 1,331 hours per year (2024 figure, down from 1,466 hours in 2000), the lowest figure across the entire OECD area.

In Italia, the figure stands at 1,716 hours (compared with 1,850 in 2000), placing the country 17th out of the 46 countries monitored by the OECD, and consistently above the European average. In practical terms, a worker in Italia works an average of 385 hours more per year than one in Germany. This means that, at a macroeconomic level, Italians work almost the equivalent of one extra day per week compared with the German model.

This gap highlights a striking paradox that contradicts the idea that ‘working longer hours’ equates to producing more wealth. Although Italians spend much more time in the office or in the factory, productivity per hour worked is lower than in Germany, often due to structural problems, shortcomings in technological innovation and less efficient organisational models.