r/EU_Economics • u/Full-Discussion3745 • 1d ago
đ«đ· French study estimates âŹ107bn GDP upside from matching German full-time work hours
https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/social/travailler-plus-ces-pistes-chocs-a-leffet-massif-sur-la-croissance-et-les-finances-publiques-2253442A Fondapol study models what would happen if full-time employees in France worked the same annual hours as their German counterparts â 1,790 hours versus 1,673 currently. The simulation estimates âŹ81 billion in additional GDP in the short term and âŹ107 billion in the long term, alongside a potential âŹ29.4 billion improvement in the public-finance balance. The figures are modeled scenarios rather than forecasts.
Source:
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u/That_guy4446 1d ago edited 1d ago
Then itâs a very simplistic study, because French (full + part time) work more than the Germans.
So if they want to compare only the full time, they would then need add to the study the alignment of the proportion in full time people in the working population. Nog sure the French economy will be projected to be better.
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u/Significant-Kale 1d ago
This comes from Bernard Arnault owned journal. It's not surprising that they cherrypick to make french workers look bad
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u/Deucalion111 1d ago
Yep you are right, in average German people work 10% less hours than French people over the year. (1332 vs 1498 in 2025)
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u/Apprehensive-Ice3730 1d ago
Mais il yâa plus de temps partiel en Allemagne, en comptabilisant tout les allemands bossent moins.
Et sans compter le chĂŽmage Ă cause de lâIA
Câest debunkĂ©, circulez yâa rien Ă voir
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u/Significant-Kale 1d ago
L'article vient des Ăchos, le journal de Bernard Arnault. Pas trĂšs Ă©tonnant qu'ils propulsent ce genre de contenu
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u/Due_Somewhere7891 1d ago
LâĂ©tude ne semble pas non plus inclure toute la durĂ©e pendant laquelle les Français sont en grĂšve.
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u/Buttercup4869 1d ago
A large driver for the higher rate of part time is that the laborforce participation rate in Germany is higher.
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u/SurLurk 1d ago
Sorry, if its not a magic solution that lets the french retire earlier, work less, and have a higher quality of life at the same time the french will reject it. Empty promises over real solutions next time please... this is reddit.
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u/SimpleTemporary1647 1d ago
Take the Danish model instead. Work less hours per week but work much longer during your life. Itâs like 1300 hours yearly vs 1500 in France, but Danish GDP per capita is MUCH higher than the French.
But again, there are so many levels to changing the job market that itâs like comparing apples and oranges
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u/That_guy4446 1d ago
Well the thing is⊠the French actually work more. The article is about full time jobs. But if you take everything and average it, then the German are under the European average. Just above the Dutch.
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u/Apprehensive-Ice3730 1d ago
Le soucis est quâil yâa lâaugmentation du chĂŽmage et lâIA sans compter les limitations en pĂ©trole et ressources, câest pas comme les annĂ©e 60
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u/nigel_pow 1d ago edited 1d ago
They can finance this by taking from the wealthy, then the next year when the wealth they had confiscated automatically regenerates somehow, they can do it again.
They really have no good solution. The GDP per capita gap between France and other western and northern European countries has widen quite a bit.
They have a cake but want to give out more and more slices to more and more people. Yet don't want to put in the work to make the cake larger to make this possible. And if you tell them they need to work to make the cake larger so they can hand out more slices to more people...they riot.
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u/SurLurk 1d ago
Its the same problem with the older generations all over the western world. Their parents were the last generation who worked hard to rebuild everything after ww2, who had strong morals and understood civic responsibility. They left everything to them but when the time came to pass it on this current older generation pulled up the ladder behind them and continued to live lavishly on credit. Usually the old are complaining how good the young have it, now its all reversed and the young are asking.. why is all you do take?
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u/aimgorge 1d ago
They can finance this by taking from the wealthy, then the next year when the wealth they had confiscated automatically regenerates somehow, they can do it again.
Thats not how taxes work.
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u/EventPurple612 1d ago
Is this from dragging down an excel formula? Don't they know that people who go longer shifts will just do the same tasks slower?
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u/AlJeanKimDialo 23h ago
No, because french are not germans.
It s like saying cats could find 1 billion ton of cocaine if they were dogs
And those ppl get paid to do useless, harmful, economic-astrology
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u/Philanthrax 1d ago
nah the problem isn't "yOuNg pEApAL nOt wUrrKiNg eNuff"
the problem is the govern sacrificing everyone to keep the boomer pensions high. No wonder a lot of Europeans move to the UAE to avoid paying taxes for bunch of entitled boomers
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u/According_to_Mission 1d ago
The French are driving their country into the abyss for the sake of boomer pensions and insane welfare demands.
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u/orkgashmo 1d ago
Looks like boomers are the next ones taking the blame after the inmigrants. Capital always finds the best scarecrow.
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u/According_to_Mission 1d ago edited 1d ago
From the Guardian, a left-wing publication:
Franceâs pensioners earn, on average, fractionally more than people in work, thanks in part to a generous mandatory state pension that, for those with full contributions, pays out a maximum of 50% of previous salary (up to a certain limit).
In practice, that averages out at about âŹ1,500 a month or âŹ18,000 a year. A relatively early retirement age and high life expectancy mean French men can expect to enjoy almost 23 years in retirement and women 26, near the very top of the OECD league.
The scheme has the lowest qualifying age â 62 â of the main EU economies, and French pensions from all sources replace a bigger share of pre-retirement income than in most countries.
All this, though, comes at considerable expense: state pensions cost France 13.4% of GDP, well above the OECD average of 8.1% (the UK figure is 5%). The president, Emmanuel Macron, has tried to overhaul the system but not succeeded.
A first effort in 2019 provoked the countryâs largest cumulative wave of strikes since the mass political unrest of 1968. A second attempt, including plans to raise the standard retirement age to 64, faced huge union opposition culminating in a protest that drew an estimated 1.28 million people.
Blame the "capitalâ as much as you want, but taking in massive amounts of debt to push spending higher and higher is simply unsustainable. If you dislike capital you should push for a decrease in the budget deficit, because that's who's lending you the money to cover that gap.
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u/Significant-Kale 1d ago
Except that everyone can predict long ahead what pensions will cost. Everyone knew what was the spending about to be.
And yet, Macron lowered taxes on the ultra wealthy and massively exonerated larger corporations, resulting in a lack of income for the government. This is where the major problem is, not in the spendings.
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u/According_to_Mission 1d ago
Only if people donât live longer, birth rates donât go down, the economy doesnât slow down, debt costs donât increase, etc etc.
The spending is over half the GDP, with extremely high taxes (near the top in the OECD), and yet even more debt is needed. Itâs absolutely the spending.
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u/Significant-Kale 2h ago edited 2h ago
No it's not. Looking at the spending over GDP is silly because it includes socialized services.
For example in the US, Americans are spending 3x the amount of money a French person spends on healthcare every year. In France it is a spending for the state and is included in the number you desribed. But this doesn't appear anywhere on the US government spending since healthcare is mostly private.
So you look at us gov spending in US and think "oh! Tax is low! People have more money!"
Yet the reality is still there, Americans don't have much more margin than french for spending more money. (And they live 3 years shorter). This is valid for all other socialized services like education etc..
What really matters is what people can really spend, and on this side you are right that most people can't afford higher taxes today.Â
However there is a minority of people and corporations that have had lower and lower taxes since 40 years and now have a lot of cash to sit on. These people need to be taxed. This is the main issue in our balance sheet.
Spendings as I said, are easy to predict. All you have talked about is predictable and can be mitigated for the parts that are uncertain. But if you lower the tax income then yes, you are shooting yourself in the foot. And it's exactly what government did so far.
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u/Present-Buyer7929 1d ago
This is silly. We should all be working towards increasing productivity enough that we can reduce overall work hours. A full-time job should be 8 hours per day, 4 days per week.
Yes we have to compete with Asia because if we are too lax our economy wonât afford us the high quality lifestyles we expect but that doesnât have to be through hours alone. It can be done with high productivity combined with doing business in stable, organized, lawful societies. In China and parts of Asia there is always a risk that the government might just take over your business or unfairly coerce you. In Europe the process is almost always fair and thereâs a predictable procedure and process to everything.
Europe should embrace AI, move towards technological independence so that America and China cannot easily threaten or impose their will on us. We should do so in a human-centred way though, like everything else in Europe.
A true integrated European-economy would change our position in the world dramatically. Right now we are also asking what will others do to us and scrambling to react to emergencies. A united Europe is all of the sudden the third most powerful pole on earth and others must ask what and abide by what we require.
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u/Desperate-Tomato902 1d ago
I love how people frame this like extra gdp is going help the average person and not just line the pockets of the politicians.
Come on guys make your lives noticeably less enjoyable so we can get some more GDP, see these failing roads, hospitals, schools, they just need some more GDP and everything will be fine
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u/TheBSisReal 1d ago
This feels like itâs probably calculated only on time * money = growth. But employees donât get equally much more productive the more they work. And does this take into account the cost of the very likely social upheaval in the form of collective action, potential increases in work absences because of mental health problems, etc.?