CDU faces criticism over plan to scrap entitlement to part-time work

Members of the CDU are pushing for the CDU-led coalition to remove employees’ entitlement to work part time. Criticism has come from within the party and from trade union leaders.

CDU members pushing to scrap part-time work entitlement

CDU politicians are calling on their party to scrap Germany’s “Rechtsanspruch auf Teilzeitarbeit”, a law which entitles full-time employees in the federal republic to reduce their hours to work part time.

“Those who can work more should work more,” Gitta Connemann, who heads the business wing of the CDU, told Stern. The magazine has seen a leaked copy of the policy paper, titled “No entitlement to lifestyle part-time”. 

The policy paper will be presented at the CDU’s general conference in Stuttgart in February, where members will vote on whether it should be adopted as party policy. Connemann’s comments echo those previously made by Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU).

“We must, in this country, work more again and, above all, more efficiently,” Merz said in May 2025, “It is not with the four-day work week and ‘work-life balance’ that we will be able to maintain our prosperity.”

According to Germany’s Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act, employees who have worked at a company for six months or longer are entitled to request reducing their hours to part time if the company employs 15 people or more. The company can refuse the request if it can prove that reducing the employee’s hours is not possible for operational reasons. 

Who is working part-time, and why?

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, in 2024 the average working week in Germany was 34 hours. Those in the Netherlands work the least, an average of 31,1 hours per week, the bloc’s average sits at 36 hours per week and those in Greece work the most, at 39,8 hours per week on average.

In 2024, 29 percent of the German working population worked part time. Among female employees, 49 percent worked part time, compared to just 12 percent of male employees. 

In 2025, the percentage of the overall working population working part time increased to 40 percent, a record high. The shift, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), is due to an increase in employees in work where part time work is very common, such as nursing and childcare.

So why are so many people working part time? In 2020, women working part time cited “personal or familial obligations” e.g. caring for children or other dependents, as the main reason for working part time, while men cited further education.

This context is part of the reason why other CDU members are pushing against the potential party policy change. Speaking to the Funke media group, Dennis Radtke (CDU) said that childcare and elderly care needed to improve so that those who wanted to work more could do so.

While the policy paper suggests making exceptions for employees looking after children, other dependents or pursuing further education, Radtke said that such a system would require the government to define which children need what level of care at what age.

Representatives of IG Metall, Germany’s largest trade union, agree with Radtke’s sentiment. “The problem is not a lack of willingness or performance, but inadequate conditions,” union boss Christiane Benner explained.