Gustav Horn: I was not convinced because the figure which was mentioned there - twenty-five percent of profit growth - is simply way too high to be realistic. You only can earn such a lot of money if you're a monopoly in the banking sector, and I hope competition will prevent that to happen.

Gustav Horn: Well in this discussion certainly a very low place. Certainly an enterprise has to earn profits, otherwise it will cease to exist. There is no way to argue against profits. But a firm has also a kind of social responsibility, and that certainly affects how you spend the money you earn. And I would prefer that such an enterprise spent some money for investment to create employment rather than cutting jobs.

Gustav Horn: I'm still not convinced, because if you want to have a profitable future you should expand your action. You should expand also your employment, you should invest in fields which look profitable. Simply cutting costs is a really defensive strategy. You should do an offensive strategy.

Gustav Horn: Not a special responsibility. They have responsibility for their employees, because their social responsibility is to create employment, not to cut employment. But they have to earn their profits, that's true.

Gustav Horn: There is a study in the US which says that does not work, because laying off people is always a sign that a firm is not doing well. So if a firm is expanding, it's using an offensive strategy, and the firm is doing well in the future, then the share price will rise, and the shareholders will benefit from that.

Gustav Horn: That's certainly happening with globalisation taking place. Certainly more jobs are created abroad, that's a quite normal thing. But it shows that also jobs in Germany are created by globalisation, because German firms in general tend to be very competitive on the global market, so in the end German employment is also benefiting from that.

Gustav Horn: Maybe it's too stifling. The keyword is more flexible working hours. Work should be available when it is needed. When demand is high you should have more working hours, when demand is low you should have less working hours. So you need a corridor of working time, that people could be flexibly employed. Not just prolonging working hours, or just shortening them.

Gustav Horn: Certainly there should be some flexibility on the firm level. But there must be general agreements for all workers, how long they could be expected to work. Otherwise certainly there would be some social exploitation in the firms.

Gustav Horn: The legal framework should be very generous, but within that legal framework certainly firms could do some special deals with their employees, and find the appropriate working hours for themselves. But certainly more working hours should be paid more.

Gustav Horn: Well I think that the debate about working hours will not create any employment. Shorter or longer working hours do not solve our serious problem of unemployment. That's a different story. I think firms should seek the appropriate level of working hours, but one should not expect that the employment problem is solved by that.