What Germany's Falling Per-Capita Working Hours Actually Measure
Germany's average weekly working time per person aged 20 to 64 fell by 0.3 hours compared with 2023, according to the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). The 2023 figure of 28.8 hours had been a record; the latest value is therefore close to 28.5 hours. The measure is not limited to people with jobs, so it captures both changes in employment and changes in hours worked by those in work.
The decline was not spread evenly. Men recorded a drop from 33.5 weekly hours in 2019 to 32.6 hours in 2025, while women remained broadly stable at just over 24 hours. Younger and middle-aged groups were affected most. Over-60s, by contrast, worked more on average, a trend the institute links to the stepwise increase in Germany's statutory retirement age.
The BiB also found a divide by education. Among people with low educational attainment, fewer were in employment at all; among higher-qualified workers, the change came mainly through shorter weekly working time. The institute points to the weak economy as the main driver of the overall decline, though it also notes that men are increasingly using parental leave and part-time arrangements.
The Gender, Age and Education Splits Behind Germany's Hours Decline
The small aggregate decline hides three distinct labour-market stories: a cyclical drop concentrated among men, a structural rise among older workers, and an educational split that separates job losses from shorter hours.
Cyclical Pressure Lands First on Male-Dominated Work
BiB researcher Harun Sulak ties the fall to the economic slowdown. Men's per-capita hours fell from a post-1991 high of 33.5 in 2019 to 32.6 in 2025, while women held steady at roughly 24. The institute argues that women are heavily represented in education, childcare and health, where skilled-labour shortages keep demand and hours firmer. That means the current downturn is uneven: male-dominated sectors have absorbed more of the working-time adjustment so far.
Education Separates Job Losses from Shorter Hours
For low-educated workers, the decline reflects a higher share of people dropping out of employment altogether. For higher-qualified workers, it is mainly a reduction in weekly hours among people who remain employed. Both reduce total labour supply, but they imply different problems: one is about losing attachment to work, the other about reduced intensity of work.
Older Workers Are a Structural Counterweight
The over-60s are moving in the opposite direction. The BiB attributes their rising participation and hours to the phased increase in the retirement age, a structural change rather than a cyclical bounce. Research director Sebastian Klüsener's warning that measured working time will gain importance follows from the same logic: as ageing shrinks the future number of workers, Germany will depend more on participation rates and hours among the workers it already has.
How Employers and Policymakers Should Read Germany's Working-Time Drop
Because the BiB measure covers all 20–64-year-olds and not only employees, it offers a wider signal about how much potential labour is actually being used. The following steps follow directly from the data.
- For industrial and male-dominated employers: the 0.9-hour drop in male per-capita working time since 2019 points to cyclical slack in male-heavy sectors, suggesting weaker near-term capacity use before any broad recovery.
- For care, health and education providers: women's stability at around 24 hours per week reflects continuing skilled-labour shortages in those fields, so staffing pressure is structural rather than cyclical.
- For employers of low-qualified workers: because the fall is mainly fewer people employed rather than shorter hours, recruitment and workplace attachment matter more than adjusting shift lengths.
- For workforce planners and policymakers: rising hours among over-60s are tied to the phased retirement-age increase and not a temporary shift, so that older-worker supply response can be built into longer-term planning.
Risk & Opportunity Assessment
| Commercial Risk | Medium | Male per-capita hours fell from 33.5 in 2019 to 32.6 in 2025 and low-educated employment fell, indicating reduced labour input in male-dominated and lower-skilled segments during the economic slowdown. |
| Competitive Risk | Medium | Higher-qualified workers are cutting weekly hours and low-qualified workers are dropping out of employment, tightening specific labour pools even as aggregate demand cools. |
| Regulatory Risk | Medium | The over-60 rise is attributed to the phased pension-age increase; any change to that timetable would directly affect the one growing labour-supply segment identified in the data. |
| Reputation Risk | Low | The report has no direct reputational exposure for named companies, though it may feed public debate about part-time work, parental leave and older-worker participation. |
| Technology Disruption | Low | The BiB analysis does not link the hours decline to technology or automation; technology-disruption risk is not supported by this story. |
| Commercial Opportunity | Medium | Stable female hours in education, childcare and health plus rising labour supply among over-60s indicate where employers can find available workforce capacity despite the broader decline. |
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