In Germany it’s starting to get hard to find employees. Our demographic is fucked.
The company I work for offers 35h per week / 30 days of vacation plus 6 additional days that you can either take or transform into money / work from home (if you wish) / paid overtime / paid travel time / good travel compensation / a very, very strong union (IG Metall) / subsidized meals / very good pay (for German standards) etc.
Yet we have a hard time finding people. It’s a bummer but I believe the young people don’t really have anything to work for. Nice housing is scarce and way too expensive, excessive consumption just fuels the climate catastrophe so no point in amassing shit no one really needs. They just want to have some time to themselves and don’t give a shit about leading a comfortable life. And I fully understand them. If it weren’t for my daughter I’d have sold the house and all meaningless shit and lead a healthy life instead of working for some dipshit just to make said dipshit richer.
I don’t necessarily mean to live like a nomad or something similar. I mean to cut working hours in half for example and just come to terms with living in a shitty apartment. With more spare time on your hands, you can be outside more, do more sports, pick up hobbies (not all hobbies need to be expensive). Just live a more modest life but put the focus on yourself instead of work. Most people with well paying jobs grow accustomed to the luxury they can afford, which makes it difficult to go back to the level of comfort one used to have when they were students for example. I was happy as a student, I was also dirt poor. But happy!