This article on The Financial Times (or this one on MK, to avoid the FT paywall) reports that the German government is planning to provide tax breaks for overtime, to encourage workers to work longer hours.

If true, this would be a complete U-turn in employment policy. Current employment law heavily discourages overtime. Employees are limited to 48 hours per week, but may not be paid for the extra hours (these rules do not apply to freelance contractors); instead, staff must get compensatory leave (also known as time off in lieu), so that the hours worked do not exceed 8 hours per day averaged over a 6 month period. The situation is described in more detail in this article on I Am Expat, which points out (not very helpfully) the distinction between "Überstunden" and "Mehrarbeit", both of which are normally translated as overtime. Basically, unless your employment contract explicitly allows for paid overtime (Überstunden), you cannot be paid for it.

Now the German government wants to encourage workers to work longer hours, with tax breaks so that paid overtime will not be so heavily taxed, as a means to revitalise the economy.

Contrast this with the situation only 3½ months ago, when Germany began a trial, with 45 companies, of a 4 day working week (reported on here by HR Brew), with plans, if successful, to roll out the 4 day week more widely.

The new policy has some issues:

• The people whose contracts allow paid overtime are most low-skilled workers in manufacturing industries, public transport (transportation, to some readers), garbage collection, retail workers, and the like. Professionals like engineers and managers (both of whom are in short supply in Germany) would be excluded; are these low-skilled workers expected to do the overtime without supervision or expert support?
• There will be an enormous number of employment contracts needing renegotiation and rewriting to allow for paid overtime and the new regulations. This will take a very long time (German bureaucracy is notoriously slow).

The latest decision looks like a panic reaction by the government. I am sure that the unions will not be happy; the people on the experimental 4 day week will also be upset.

Nevertheless, something needs to be done; the German economy is in the doldrums, and people's disposable income gets less and less, by the month.