SPD Labour Minister plans 4-day workweek pilot project for Berlin

Berlin Labour Minister Cansel Kiziltepe has announced that she plans to launch a pilot project to trial a four-day workweek for public administrative staff in the German city. The FDP has rejected the plans as "unrealistic". 

Berlin Labour Minister wants to trial a four-day workweek

In an interview with Tagesspiegel, Berlin’s new Labour Minister, Cansel Kiziltepe has announced plans to trial the four-day workweek in the German capital.

In the interview, Kiziltepe pointed out that within the next eight years, 44.000 employees who work for administrative bodies in Berlin are set to go into retirement. The SPD politician said that in order to make jobs in the city-state more desirable, “We have to make young people a good offer if we are going to make administrative jobs attractive to them.” 

“Lots of young people and, first and foremost, parents with children would like to have a better work-life balance. We should consider these wishes,” Kiziltepe added.

Since administrative bodies are already overworked and understaffed in many Berlin offices, with processes such as applications for citizenship sometimes being delayed by years because of backlogs, Berlin would need to speed up the development of its digital administration platforms in order to prevent waits becoming even longer.

FDP spurn four-day workweek plan

In response to Kiziltepe, Christoph Meyer of the centrist FDP party said that the suggestions came at the wrong moment. “Appointments at administration offices in Berlin are scarce, meaning vehicle registrations, passports and even applying for birth certificate can take months,” Meyer said.

The city state’s FDP leader spurned Kiziltepe’s suggestion to change the working schedule as unrealistic. “What the city needs now is the modernisation and transformation of the process to finally equip Berlin with a powerful, fast, efficient and accessible administration,” he added.

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