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Bavaria Introduces 42-Hour Work Week

April 1, 2004
https://p.dw.com/p/4rOf

Bavaria declared Wednesday it would introduce the 42-hour work week. Premier Edmund Stoiber announced that Bavarian civil servants would be expected to work the longer hours from September, while other employees would have to accept working 42 hours if they were promoted or hired after May 1. Last week, the heads of Germany's federal states had agreed to extend working hours for civil servants in western Germany, without pay increases. The goal of the new civil service labor contracts was to increase working hours to at least 40 hours per week. Western Germans currently work 38.5 per week, while eastern Germans work 40 hours. Germany's large civil service population includes teachers and hospital workers, as well as those directly employed directly in the government bureaucracy.