CDU Party Conference
Merz: 'We do not accuse anyone of laziness' - Friedrich Merz pushes labour reforms as Germany's job crisis deepens
Do Germans work too little? Or are they simply lazy? Debates over the welfare state and working hours are also shaping the CDU's federal party conference in Stuttgart.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz defended his stance in the debate on working hours and social reforms. He dismissed as a "malicious accusation" the claim that the CDU is out of touch with people and overly harsh. "We are not accusing anyone of laziness—Germany is a country of hard workers," the chancellor candidate said at the CDU's federal conference in Stuttgart. "This remains a high-performing nation of doers and achievers."
"But we do accuse our critics of intellectual laziness," he added, "because they refuse to acknowledge that our system has the wrong incentives, that our rules are too rigid, and that our economic potential is being stifled by bureaucratic red tape." He vowed to change this in cooperation with the Social Democrats.
Merz argued that Germany faces an apparent paradox that needs better explanation: companies are struggling to find workers while unemployment rises above three million. "The jobs are there—we just need to make them accessible." He warned that productivity cannot be improved by promising a four-day workweek for all. "We can and must become more flexible. We need to reward hard work, make it easier to return to employment—and above all, we must allow businesses and workers to take pride and joy in their work and success."
Read also:
- American teenagers taking up farming roles previously filled by immigrants, a concept revisited from 1965's labor market shift.
- Weekly affairs in the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag)
- Landslide claims seven lives, injures six individuals while they work to restore a water channel in the northern region of Pakistan
- Escalating conflict in Sudan has prompted the United Nations to announce a critical gender crisis, highlighting the disproportionate impact of the ongoing violence on women and girls.
