Understand

Analysis · Employment · Labour Market

The 35-hour week

In 2000, France decided to share work by reducing it. Unemployment didn't move. Competitiveness declined. And the state compensated businesses with billions of euros taken from taxpayers. All so politicians could say they had acted.

5 semaines less work per year since the Aubry law (4h/wk × 47 wks ≈ 4.7 wks)
20 Mds€ annual cost of payroll tax relief compensating businesses (Cour des Comptes, 2007)
3% unemployment in Germany in 2023. In 2005, it was 11%. They chose flexibility — not fewer hours.
01

Work is not a fixed pie to share

If cutting hours created jobs, moving to 20 hours would create twice as many. At 10 hours, full employment. Obviously absurd — and yet that is exactly the logic behind the 35-hour week. Work is not a fixed quantity to be divided among workers.

This fallacy has a name: the lump of labour fallacy. It ignores the fact that when people work, they create wealth — which generates new demand, new jobs. Germany works FEWER hours per worker than France — and has twice as low unemployment.

"If cutting hours created jobs, moving to 20 hours would solve unemployment." the 35h logic, taken to its conclusion

Click on a country to see its details. France is highlighted — and is not leading the rankings.

← Click a row to learn more

💡 The key takeaway The Netherlands (3.5% unemployment) works 1,427 hours per year — less than France. Germany (3%) works 1,341 hours. Hours worked do not explain unemployment. Labour market flexibility is what makes the difference.
02

Who won? Who lost?

The 35-hour week did not affect everyone equally. Executives on permanent contracts gained extra days off. Women in involuntary part-time work faced heavier constraints. Small manufacturing firms saw their costs rise — and had to wait for the state to compensate them.

The result: a two-speed system. On one side, insiders (permanent contracts, large firms, public sector) benefited from reduced working time. On the other, outsiders — the unemployed, precarious workers, part-timers — gained nothing.

"Extra days off went to executives. Unemployment stayed for everyone else." the real social record of the 35-hour week — differentiated by category

Three profiles, three radically different experiences of the same law.

💡 The key takeaway A uniform labour policy produces opposite effects depending on the profile. A law intended to help the most vulnerable mainly benefited the most protected — and funded compensation at the taxpayer's expense.
03

France vs Germany: two choices, two fates

In 2000, France and Germany had similar labour markets — around 9% unemployment. France cut working hours. Germany launched the Hartz reforms in 2003: more flexibility, less rigid contracts, stronger incentives to return to work. The result twenty years later: France 7.3%, Germany 3%.

The comparison is striking. In 2005, German unemployment reached 11.2% — higher than France's 9.9%. It wasn't the economic cycle that changed everything. It was the structural choice: flexibility versus restriction.

In 2008, both countries reached the same level — 7.4% each. Then the global financial crisis hit. And that's when everything played out: Germany absorbed the shock. Its labour market, made flexible by the Hartz reforms, let firms reduce hours rather than jobs — Kurzarbeit (short-time work) prevented mass layoffs. In France, structural rigidity — the 35-hour week, dismissal costs, minimum wage — turned a cyclical shock into lasting unemployment. By 2013, France had passed 10%. Germany was at 5% and still falling.

"In 2005, Germany had 11% unemployment. More than France. Today: 3%." the effect of the Hartz reforms (2003) — OECD unemployment, annual data

The two lines show two diverging trajectories from a nearly identical starting point.

💡 The decisive test: 2008 In 2008, France and Germany were equal — 7.4% unemployment each. The crisis hit both. But a flexible labour market absorbs shocks better than a rigid one: Germany fell to 3%, France climbed back to 10%. That's not the business cycle. That's the structure.
04

What if you could choose your own hours?

The 35-hour week imposes the same working time on everyone. Yet some workers want to work more to earn more — to pay for training, fund a project, save for retirement. For them, the law is a cage. It prevents them from freely selling their time.

In Switzerland, Germany, Denmark — no state-imposed weekly working time law. Sector-level collective agreements, negotiated between unions and employers. If you want to work 40 hours, you can. If you want 30 hours, you negotiate. France is the exception, not the rule.

"In Switzerland, you negotiate your hours with your employer. Here, the state decides for you." France vs countries with sector-level collective bargaining

Calculate how much more you could earn if you could work 4 extra hours per week.

1 500€5 000€
If you could work 4 extra hours per week (35→39h), you would earn 3 400€ more per year, or 283€ more per month (gross).
💡 The key takeaway What matters most is not the money at stake — it's the freedom. A worker who wants to fund a project, training, or simply save more should be able to decide their own time. The law removes this choice without asking their opinion.
05

The objections — flipped

The 35-hour week triggers reflexive defences. Some rest on real facts, others on confusion. Here are the four main ones — and what the data and economics say in response.

Click a card to flip the objection.

01 📊

"The 35-hour week created jobs — 350,000 according to Dares."

Flip →
01

The Dares short-term estimate (2001) covered 2 years of adjustment. In the long run, studies by Kramarz, Cahuc and Zylberberg show a null or negative effect on employment. Meanwhile, Germany — without cutting hours — created 3 million net jobs between 2005 and 2019. You don't create jobs by prohibiting work.

02 🏖️

"Workers gained free time — that's social progress."

Flip →
02

Mainly those who already had a stable job. The unemployed gained... the same unemployment. And women in involuntary part-time work faced heavier constraints. Extra days off mainly benefited executives in the service sector. Workers got shift patterns in 3×8, reorganised on-call duties, and less flexibility — not more.

03 🔒

"It's an acquired right — it's untouchable."

Flip →
03

In 2003, the Fillon law allowed exceeding 35 hours by collective agreement. In 2017, the El Khomri law relaxed branch agreements. Rights always evolve. Above all: an "acquired right" that prevents those who want to work more from doing so is not a right — it's a constraint imposed on all in the name of an imaginary majority. The true acquired right is the freedom to negotiate.

04 📈

"France has the world's best hourly productivity — proof the 35h works."

Flip →
04

Hourly productivity is high because the least productive have been excluded from the labour market. If you only put the best to work, the average rises — but the excluded produce nothing. That's not performance, it's filtering. Germany has comparable hourly productivity — and an employment rate 8 points higher.

💡 The key takeaway Every defence of the 35-hour week runs into the same facts: the employment effect is null in the long run, the benefits are captured by insiders, and the cost is borne by taxpayers and the unemployed. The debate deserves to be restarted from the data — not from myths.

Work-sharing is an arithmetic error.

Work is not shared like a pizza — it is created when you remove the obstacles that prevent people from working, hiring, and producing. Twenty-five years of the 35-hour week have not solved unemployment. They have mainly proved that a good intention is no substitute for a good mechanism.