Essay: “Anyone who expects additional efforts must show why” – The Siemens boss explains what vision of the future Germany needs now

In physics you learn a simple formula very early on: power is work per time. For an economy, the principle is surprisingly similar: economic performance and prosperity depend on how much we work and how much value is created from it. So we have to achieve something in order to be able to afford something: good education, reliable infrastructure, social security.

Germany is not in a classic labor market crisis. We are facing a crisis of the future - a challenge that has never been seen before in the history of the Federal Republic.

On the one hand, the baby boomers are retiring. Fewer and fewer people of working age have to bear the costs of an aging society. At the same time, the productivity advantage that made Germany's success possible for decades is melting away. German factories cost more, but also created more value per hour worked. This lead is getting smaller and smaller because others are getting better.

Our international competition is reacting quickly: they are working more, investing heavily in state-of-the-art systems and implementing new technologies more quickly. Germany is still a strong competitor. But we're falling behind. The equation on which our prosperity was long based no longer works: we work less, invest too little and are too slow.