Basic HTML Version
.
.
..
PA6TOR GENERAL'S REPORT, February 6, 1981
Page 23
Critics of the West German economy also point an accusing finger to the
fast-rising curve of welfare spending. West Germany has been closely
patterning Sweden's cradle-to-grave welfare system. Welfare now consumes
30% of Bonn's GNP, up from 20% in 1960.
Public (governmental) debt has soared from 20% of GNP in 1970 to about
35%. Recent German governments, especially the welfare-minded Social
Democrats, have shown little inclination in striving for balanced budgets,
disturbing conservative banking circles.
On the individual level, the average German laborer now works less than
anyone else in the Western industrial world. Adjusting for legal holi
days, the Japanese work a 38.8 hour week, and Americans are down to 35
hours; the West Germans now work only 31.6 hours. An annual vacation of
six weeks is the rule. So many German workers now combine five or six of
their vacation days with regular Christmas and New Year holidays that many
West German plants now elect to shut down for about a two-week period at
year's end. Absenteeism claims 8.4% of scheduled work time, compared to
3.5% in the U.S.
As a result of these fact0rs, it is estimated that labor costs in West
Germany, including fringe benefits, now top those in America by about 25
per cent.
(Still, despite the decline of the hallowed German work ethic,
German worker morale on the job is still high. West German productivity
continues to rise, increasing by 4.1% in 1979.)
All in all, the bloom is off Germany's economic rose. Worst of all, the
federal government, because of its debt burden and welfare load, is far
less able to handle the stress during bad times than it should be, simply
because it had gone on a spending binge during the good years.
Franz Josef Strauss, the former finance minister, charged recently in
Parliament that the government had run the country so deep into debt that
it had lost room to maneuver.
Thus, the woes and worries mount for Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau