[braza]

One of the aspects that has never been discussed in those studies is the competitor's offset, which wouldn't adopt the 4-day work week.

Local companies in Germany have a very defensive business due to the nature of the market (not so internationalized, highly consolidated, a lot of small businesses that no big corporation would try to enter, and low competition in mid-sized businesses due to bureaucracy).

For local SaaS companies or local companies for sure, it can work since no big competitor can rise. Still, the real test would be Germany placing that in their industrial base (e.g. cars, industrial instruments, chemical industry, logistics), or in some other businesses where the entry barrier is low.

[hotspot_one]

Friend of mine worked for BMW in Germany. The 35 hour work week was strictly enforced.

It's the law, it's the system, so of course that is what they are going to do.

[braza]

Yes. Those are the specific conventions that the betriebsrat (Workers Concil) decides, but this varies from company to company and state.

My point is, considering this specific arrangement of 7 hours a day/workday (35h), what would be the offset comparing this same company with 28h/week (4D) with another company not in that arrangement in scenarios where throughput per hour matters?