For many employees, there will only be a limited number of contemplative and quiet Christmas days: almost a fifth or 18.6 percent of all dependent employees in Germany also have to work regularly on weekends. This emerges from the response of the Federal Ministry of Labor to a left-wing request, as reported by the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post” on Saturday. According to this, in 2021, out of a total of 37.8 million dependent employees, a good seven million were on duty at least every other weekend.

And at least on two Sundays and public holidays per month, 10.2 percent or a good 3.8 million employees worked, as the answer to the written question from Left-wing MP Susanne Ferschl revealed. Employees in the hospitality industry are particularly affected: almost half of them (47.6 percent) also worked on the weekends last year. A third was still in use late in the evening.

But also in retail (33.1 percent), in the arts and entertainment industry (28.8 percent) and in health and social services (27.4 percent), people often work on weekends. In the transport and logistics sector, more than every tenth employee (12.5 percent) also works at night. With these figures, the ministry referred to a special evaluation of the results of the current microcensus of the Federal Statistical Office.

“The fact that the working time law is not flexible turns out to be a fairy tale on closer inspection: working on Sundays and public holidays and also working late in the evening or at night is common practice in a number of industries,” said Left Party Vice President Ferschl of the newspaper. “A not inconsiderable part of the employees cannot spend Christmas or New Year with the family.”

The most important thing now is the introduction of mandatory timekeeping. “For three years now, the respective federal government has been sitting out enshrining a corresponding obligation in law, despite corresponding judgments by the European Court of Justice and the Federal Labor Court,” criticized Ferschl. The atypical working hours have been shown to be detrimental to health, she stressed.

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