276 RÜDIGER HACHTMANN
with full-time jobs and those with less secure jobs has been intensifying
(alongside a dramatic rise in burnout syndrome as well as other factors),
leading to a multifaceted “dwindling solidarity of the workforce” within
a company, but also between diff erent locations of the same corporation.
Conclusion
In the 1960s and 1970s, East and West Germany were confronted by sim-
ilar challenges: labor was short and the importance of the global market
was growing, as was the pressure to develop production technology and
optimize workplace organization. Yet this process followed very diff erent
paths in the two German states. Whereas rationalization began to make
inroads toward automation (bought at the price of mass unemployment),
and digitalization gained a foothold almost everywhere in West Germany,
the GDR was able to tackle these challenges only on a very limited scale.
It was not until after 1990 that the dynamics of this development—under
the banner of fl exibility—changed fundamentally in East and West Ger-
many. The grievances experienced after the fall of the Wall by many East
German employees, who complained about the “incredibly fast-moving
pace” of work and life in general, were echoed by countless Germans
across the entire Federal Republic just a few years later.^86 This feeling
Table 5.5. Temporary Workers from 1970 to 2013 (absolute fi gures—only for
West Germany up to and including 1990; number as of December each year)
Year Absolute number
1970 19,417
1975 8,920
1980 33,227
1985 46,946
1990 118,875
1995 162,275
2000 337,845
2005 464,539
2010 823,509
2013 814,580
Source: Bundesagentur für Arbeit, “Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, Leiharbeitnehmer, Verleih-
betriebe (1973–2014),” retrieved 29 May 2016, https://statistik.arbeitsagentur.de/Statistik
daten/Detail/Aktuell/iiia6/aueg-aueg-zr/aueg-zr-d-0-xls.xls.