Structural change in industrial action

With an average annual loss of three working days per thousand employees, Germany is still one of the stablest OECD countries in terms of labour relations. Since 2010 an annual average of 26 days have been lost in the United Kingdom and 139 days in France. That strikes are more common in other countries is partly connected with the politically motivated general strikes which have increased as a result of the economic and financial crisis. In Germany the crisis brought few lost days, with government and trade unions actually coming closer. Generally speaking, strike action in Germany has shifted to the service sector. Since 2005 more than three quarters of all industrial action-related losses of working hours have occurred in the tertiary sector. With this tertiarisation of industrial action the number of strikers per affected establishment has declined from 583 (1995/99) to 64 (2010/2014). However, the average length of strikes has increased from 0.9 days to 2.8.