Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing on Wednesday urged Germans to work harder to help restore the country’s economy.
“Investors are already doubting our ability to reform, but especially our ability and our will to perform,” Sewing said at the Handelsblatt banking summit in Frankfurt.
“More growth in Germany will come only if we also change our attitude to work; if we are prepared to work differently, but overall to work more and harder.”
Sewing said that EU citizens work about 34 hours a week on average compared with about 28 hours in Germany.
He argued that Germany should embrace longer work-weeks. “We won’t manage it with an average of 28 hours per week and a pension at 63,” he said.
The euro area’s biggest economy has been digesting a slate of negative economic data recently.
For starters, the German economy contracted in the second quarter of the year, while at the start of the month, the manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI), a key indicator of industrial sentiment, flashed negative, marking over a year it’s been in negative territory.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, flagship carmaker Volkswagen told its workforce it was considering a factory closure, an unprecedented move in Germany for the company.
Sewing also expressed concerns about recent regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony, where the right-wing extremist AfD party finished first and second, respectively.
“I regret the strong influx of support for parties with extreme positions and — like most of us — I would have liked a different outcome,” he said, adding that political instability in the country will reduce Germany’s attractiveness as an investment destination.
“Along with our excellent companies, this was always one of the strongest arguments for investing here. But now this argument is being called into question in some cases.”
