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Comment by kleiba | Hacker News Reader

That would be illegal in Germany: your regular work hours must not exceed 8hrs per day.

It can be contractually set to exceed 8h if the average of 8h is maintained (I think over 4 months for daytime work and 1 month for night work).

Not sure about night work, but for daytime work the averaging period can be extended to up to one year by agreement (Edit: And the default averaging period is six months).

Also note that the averaging is based on the official working week, which to this day still runs from Monday to Saturday, i.e. six days, so anything up to 48 h/week remains fully within the 8 h/working day average.

Really? That is interesting, although I can't say it would be preferable for me. I've had plenty of times when 4x10 was a good fit for my lifestyle. I've got a co-worker who currently does 3x12 and really seems to like it.

The daily limit is actually 10 h, the 8 h-limit only applies to the average daily working hours measured across the last six months (or a different period of up to a year by agreement). Additionally, the average working hours are calculated based on the official six-day working week, which means that anything up to 48 h/week still remains fully within the legal limit.

3x12 on the other would be illegal on the other hand, unless it includes a significant amount of on-call duty or falls within one of the other permitted exceptions (which probably wouldn't apply to your co-worker, though).

What about the fact it's in the middle of the night? I'd much rather work longer hours during the day than start at 2 am.

8 hours of work already mean about 10 hours dedicated to work, including commute and preparation. It’s 18 hours if you include sleeping and you only have 6 hours left for “recreation,” which must also include personal errands, cooking and cleaning.

If you work 10/12 hour shifts you have no life. No wonder people await the weekend like it’s air.

my current job is 3*10. That won't be allowed in germany ?

Pretty sure it would be, just have to pay more for the extra hours. I'm not a German but it would be surprising if it's any different than the rest of the EU countries.

oh. My employer is giving me flexible schedule as a perk to me . Would be hard to convince them to pay extra on top of it. They might just ask me to work regular hours.

Brief summary: The regular limit is 8 h per day, but can be extended to 10 h per day as long as the daily average doesn't exceed 8 h/day as measured across a six-month period (the averaging period can be extended to up to a year by agreement).

The thing to note is that the average is based on the official working week, which to this day still runs six days, Monday to Saturday. So as long as you're working less than 48 h/week, it's actually impossible to exceed the 8 h/average day limit and 3x10 h is perfectly fine from that point of view.

Extra pay and/or extra days off are only mandated for night-time work, anything else is a matter for wage agreements or your individual contract.

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