GERMANY Time off causing fiscal trouble

Some say Germans' tradition of long vacations is hurting their economy.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- At age 30, and with three years' seniority, Holger Bettenhausen figures his typical German allotment of 28 days' paid vacation will just about enough meet his needs.
"Last year, I was in Thailand for three weeks," Bettenhausen said. "Beach vacations are my favorite, to get out of the cold weather in Germany."
Add 13 legal holidays, for over eight weeks off a year, and Bettenhausen has a deal most Americans or Britons don't get with a lifetime of work.
Some people are starting to wonder if it's too much -- while Germans vacation, their economy is stagnating into a third straight year. And some economists and politicians say that if Germans want to fix the country's fiscal problems, they have to start showing up for work.
Recent discussion of working time was prompted by a startling finding: The economy is expected to grow an added 0.6 percent next year, not because of anything the government did, but only because of a calendar quirk that puts several major holidays on weekends.
That adds 3.3 more days worked on average, according to calculations by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin.
The added growth is significant in a country where the economy only grew 0.2 percent last year, and where some economists forecast zero growth this year.
The business-oriented Institute of the German Economy in Cologne weighed in with an estimate that working one hour longer per week would bring economic growth next year to 1.6 percent and create 100,000 new jobs.
What's being done
To spur growth, the government has begun tackling other elements of the country's welfare state and its plush worker protections, proposing cuts in the duration of jobless pay and easing restrictions on firing.
But with vacations enshrined in union contracts, any changes in vacation and holiday habits are likely to be gradual. German law requires at least 24 days a year, but most collective bargaining contracts call for more, with 30 or 32 days common.
There are 10 nationwide holidays and several regional ones, depending on whether the region is predominantly Catholic or Protestant. Catholic Bavaria, for instance, has 13 holidays, including All Saint's Day on Nov. 1 and Corpus Christi on June 10.
And Germans like their time off.
"It's more quality in my life," said graphic designer Bettenhausen. "I don't want to work all the time. I want to relax and see other countries."
This year, his vacations include two weeks off from designing brochures at the small advertising agency where he works in Passau to go to Austria's stunning Tirol mountains. Then, in December, a few days with his parents and sisters.
With only five employees, vacation planning can be tricky, he says. But there are two people who willingly take less vacation: the managers who own the business.
According to the Institute of the German Economy, Germans have worked less and less since the 1960s and 1970s -- when Germans worked more than Americans.
Yearly hours per worker for all German workers fell from 2,162 in 1960 to 1,444 last year. The average factory worker in Germany now puts in 1,557 hours, well behind countries such as Great Britain with 1,693, Switzerland with 1,844 and the United States with 1,904.
All that led Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement last month to suggest dropping at least one holiday. "As far as vacations, holidays and work hours go, we've reached the limit," Clement said.
What happened
The roots of German's leisure habits lies in the postwar economic boom known as the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle. The economy blossomed from the 1950s through the 1970s as Germans rebuilt their industries from the destruction of World War II and became an export powerhouse.
With government policy that protected unions, wages soared along with growth. At first, workers took the gains in the form of money.
Then, as growth slowed in the 1980s and unemployment grew, the unions pursued shorter work weeks and more vacation, on the theory that cutting hours per worker spread the work and gave more a chance at a job.
Employers' and workers' acceptance of ever shorter hours may have reached its limit, however. When the IG Metall industrial union struck for a shorter work week -- 35 instead of 38 hours -- in east Germany, the walkouts encountered widespread criticism and the union abandoned them after four weeks.