Contents
How they are calculated
The weekly target is in the employment contract. For a month it is either multiplied by the actual working days or projected as a flat rate with the factor 4.348 weeks (365 days divided by seven and by twelve).
Both routes are permissible but give different monthly figures. Anyone using the factor gets the same target every month; anyone counting working days gets less in February than in March. What matters is only that you stick with one.
Public holidays, leave and illness
On a statutory public holiday falling on a working day, the working time lost is paid (section 2 of the Continued Remuneration Act). In the time account that day's target time is therefore credited, not deducted.
The same applies to leave and illness: for those days the target time is treated as worked. Anyone handling it differently produces negative hours for times when nobody had to work.
For part-time work with unevenly distributed days, the specific day matters: anyone working eight hours on Mondays and four on Fridays is credited eight hours for a public holiday on a Monday.
Example: a month with a public holiday
- Contract: 30 hours a week over five days, so 6 hours a day.
- May 2026 has 20 working days, one of them a public holiday on 1 May.
- Target hours by working days: 20 × 6 = 120 hours.
- The public holiday is credited with 6 hours, so 114 hours have to be worked.
Common mistake
Public holidays get counted into the target time as ordinary working days, with no credit. Over a year, on a five-day week that adds up to as much as 13 days, so more than 100 hours in the negative that nobody caused.
This is not legal advice; for a specific case at your workplace you are better off asking someone qualified to give it.
Published by: AMNAU GmbH
Editorial responsibility: Ugur Aydogan, Product development.
Last reviewed: 2 September 2026