Long working days in the office does not mean an increased health risk – Diepresse.com
« Anyone who works for more than ten hours a day does not report significantly more often of exhaustion or other stress symptoms than employees with shorter working days, » says an IW study.
Long daily working hours for office workers do not mean an increased health risk, said the employer -related institute of the German economy (IW) in Cologne. « Anyone who works for more than ten hours a day does not report significantly more often of exhaustion or other stress symptoms as employees with shorter working days, » says an IW study, which initially reported « Welt am Sonntag ».
« Especially with office workers, there are definitely scope – without negative effects, » write the study authors with a view to the reform of the Working Hours Act planned by the German government. Union and the SPD had announced that in accordance with the European working time directive, they would create the possibility of a weekly instead of a daily maximum working hours in the Working Hours Act. According to the law, working hours may not exceed eight hours.
Voluntary
« Where longer daily working hours are accepted voluntarily, this does not affect satisfaction with work, » says the study. During very long daily working hours, no systematic negative abnormalities in working life have been observed – such as lower job satisfaction, greater exhaustion or weakened ability to work. Longer working days with potentially more than ten hours did not have a negative impact on the self -esteemed general health of the office workers or the number of disease -related failure days.
The basis for the evaluation of the IW was a work time recovery from the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine (BauA) in 2021 – the latest available survey year – of more than 8,600 office workers. The authors make it clear that their results apply to people with office jobs. But: « Not every activity is suitable for longer working hours – for security and health reasons alone. But you can venture more flexibility when it comes to office levels. »
Unions run storm against the farewell of the eight-hour day that has been customary since 1918. An analysis of the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute for Labor Law (HSI) of the union-related Hans Böckler Foundation came to a different result than the IW: « It has long been proven that working hours of more than eight hours endanger health, » says HSI paper. (APA/dpa)
