(I'm not German, nor do I work there).
and I hope somehow we are able to bring a less than 40 hour/week arrangement in the US.
Workers in the US work, by far, the most of any other country. And yet, only a relative few are able to afford quality medical care, and decent quality of life. (The workers in the tech sectors like Bay area, NYC, etc. are, IMHO, an outlier with respect to pay packages compared to the rest of the country.)
It's a devil's bargain: you either work your a* off, 60-80 hours/week, and hope to get paid $$$$ one day; or you work "reasonable" hours and get paid for a shitty qualify of life.
Even ignore Asia - Poles, Czechs, and other CEE residents work longer hours than Germans yet are similarly as productive (based on GDP per capita) and have caught up developmentally.
No, that’s not happening. Shareholder value has to increase so keep working 40h and produce more outcome.
Why not? The moment anyone offers this option, they get their pick of employees who will both churn less and be better rested for their work time, increasing productivity, whereas their greedy competitors get the people with no better options and burn them out. Despite people's despair, the current situation is extremely unstable.