Germany is drafting a law to protect your right to work from home—and still have a life
A new German law would protect the right to work from home while also limiting the number of hours worked.
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- Nov 30, 2020
The German government is moving forward with a set of laws that would protect a person’s ability to work from home when possible. The legislation would also limit the number of hours that people are expected to toil from home, the Financial Times reports. The work-life balance problem, too, is something the government believes it can manage through official policy, rather than waiting for people or business leaders to change their culture.
This idea, that has gathered momentum during the pandemic, is already facing resistance from Germany’s influential labor groups who worry that work-from-home laws will hamper employee’s ability to organize and bargain collectively, or that this will nudge employers to send jobs overseas, fearing a plunge in productivity. However, a survey published this summer by the Ifo Institute, an economic think-tank in Munich, found 54% of company leaders say they want more employees to work from home after the pandemic.
