Holidays like Labor Day (May 1st) fall on weekends and workers lose out. Politicians are demanding that they be made up for on weekdays.
Berlin – May 1st, of all days, Labor Day, falls on a Sunday again this year – and is therefore not the only public holiday that employees in Germany slip through the cracks as an additional day off. Christmas Day on 25 December 2022 is also a Sunday. Now some politicians are promoting making up for lost days off.
In many countries – including Belgium, Spain and Great Britain – it is already the practice that public holidays that fall on a weekend are made up for on the following working day. But is Germany ready for this? The mood seems to have shifted on this topic in recent years, as current surveys show.
January 1 (New Year) | Saturday |
January 6 (Epiphany) | Thursday (Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt) |
March 8 (International Women’s Day) | Tuesday (only Berlin) |
1 May (Labor Day) | Sunday |
August 15 (Assumption of Mary) | Monday (Saarland, Bavaria) |
20 September (Universal Children’s Day) | Tuesday (Thuringia only) |
3 October (Day of German Unity) | Monday |
31 October (Reformation Day) | Monday (Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia) |
1 November (All Saints’ Day) | Tuesday (Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, NRW, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland) |
16 November (Day of Repentance and Prayer) | Wednesday (Saxony, no school in Bavaria) |
25 December (Christmas Day) | Sunday |
26 December (Boxing Day) | Monday |
January 1 (New Year) | 2023: Sunday |
The regulation would of course only apply to public holidays that are linked to a date but not to a day of the week. For example, Good Friday always falls on a Friday, Whit Monday on a Monday or Ascension Day on a Thursday. And Easter Sunday would also be excluded from the catch-up regulation for public holidays.
Catch up on holidays: Missing days off mean more stress and less relaxation
The left will soon take parliamentary action “so that there will be no more public holidays in the future and social cohesion in the country will be strengthened,” said the first parliamentary manager of the left-wing faction in the Bundestag, Jan Korte, on Monday (April 25, 2022) of the Rheinische Post. Until this is regulated by law, he calls on “the entrepreneurs to provide the employees with replacement and corona-Bonus give an additional day off in a timely manner”.
Korte said each lost holiday means more stress and less much-needed recovery from the stresses of work and the pandemic. May 1st in particular has a special meaning for employees “as a battle and public holiday”. On the day there are usually numerous demonstrations and rallies throughout Germany. After In 2020 many events had been canceled due to Corona, May 1st, 2021 could take place again as usual. It came at that numerous demonstrations in Germany to massive riots.
The labor market expert of the Greens, Beate Müller-Gemmeke, told the Rheinische Post: “Of course it is annoying for employees when the day of work, the public holiday on May 1st, falls on a Sunday.” It is now time to “To discuss socially that public holidays that fall on a Sunday can be made up for, as is already the case in a number of countries,” said Müller-Gemmeke.
Survey: Half of Germans have to make up for weekend holidays
A Yougov survey in 2021 showed that half of the adults in Germany would be in favor of nationwide public holidays, if they fall on a weekend, being made up as days off on the following Monday. Around a third of those questioned in Germany were opposed to the proposal. Five years earlier, a Yougov survey came to the conclusion that just over half of Germans aged 18 and over thought it would make little sense to introduce this catch-up regulation in Germany as well.
According to pros and cons from the German Economic Institute (IW), IW working time expert Christoph Schröder uses international competitiveness as an argument against such a regulation: “Germany has the shortest annual working time in the EU and at the same time, together with Denmark, has the most days off -days. And Belgium, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom do not have higher values than Germany, even with the catch-up public holidays.” Only Spain is far ahead with 14 public holidays, but employees there only have an average of 22 vacation days available, according to Schröder. (iwe/dpa)
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