Who works how and what, how much and for what? Work is surrounded by many W-questions, it was and is a major and central socio-political issue. This is not least testified to by Labor Day, which began at the end of the 19th century as a day of struggle for the working class.
The focus of debates around work has broadened over time. Today it is still about wages and justice, but very often also about meaning and satisfaction. Young people see work as just one of several ways to get through the day. It is becoming increasingly difficult to lure them to the workbenches with money.
This is not trivial if only because the state is dependent on the money that it can withhold from wages in the form of taxes. If nobody wants to earn more, what should the tax authorities calculate with? And who should work hard for Germany’s economic competitiveness if more and more people refuse to work?
The shortage of skilled workers has long since assumed threatening proportions in several sectors. Labor search parties are rushing across the globe in competition with those from other industrialized countries to look for people willing to work who are supposed to secure the output standard in this country.
Opportunity cards for foreigners, AI as a job killer
Meanwhile, the legislation is laboring around with semantic cuteness such as “chance cards” for foreigners, which the economy no longer sees as important “building blocks” and which the CDU condemns as negligent invitation gestures to those who only have a place in the social systems want.
And the challenges of the working world are growing due to the ever-improving services of artificial intelligence, which are suitable for taking over some jobs entirely, which raises the next big questions about the future of work.
And it is precisely in these many uncertainties that the obligation to regulate working hours recently fell through. The curtain goes up and the bureaucracy takes the stage. Some threw their hands up in frustration. How is all this supposed to work, where do you get the right programs and tables from, or are ballpoint pens and scrap paper enough?
Especially in the IT-supported knowledge or creative professions, home office regulations and the possibility of working “remotely” from anywhere have made the gray area between work and leisure time the new normal. With the result that hardly anyone can really say anymore how much effort was actually related to the job and how much interest or habit was due.
Work is not a pony farm.
Andrea Nahles, head of the Federal Employment Agency
The recording of working hours is much more than just an administrative issue and organizational effort. It is the vehicle for the urgent question: what exactly is that: work? Is it still mandatory in this country or just an option?
“Work is not a pony farm,” Andrea Nahles, head of the employment agency, recently complained about the younger generation’s lack of attitude to work. And she is not alone in this view. Where is the bite, ask the baby boomers in particular, where do you want to reach? Interestingly enough, the declining interest in full commitment is being lamented by exactly the generation that has established burnout as the standard diagnosis for professional overload and thus serves as a bad example for younger people.
Leaning back in comfort, the younger generation hold their work-life balance against the first-work-and-then concept. They want a good life and not ruin it by overwork. Which sounds very understandable from an individual perspective. But how can an economy survive on such a basis against global competition?
When a job coach recently presented at a seminar that his success was definitely a question of having the right hands-on attitude, but above all it was also based on effort, he looked into long faces. effort, honestly?
For Karl Marx, work still alienated man from himself and from nature. Today it looks as if man has alienated himself from work. It’s probably time to come up with a new and attractive idea of what could be good about work. Even if it gets a bit difficult.
